


Crimson Curse

by Loki_Ro_Sparrow



Category: Original Work
Genre: Magic, More Magic, OC, Original Character(s), Original Story - Freeform, this sucks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-25
Updated: 2016-06-25
Packaged: 2018-07-18 02:45:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 16
Words: 36,705
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7296340
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Loki_Ro_Sparrow/pseuds/Loki_Ro_Sparrow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Little Ashton Bulova believed everything was normal, that is until it wasn't.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Boy with a Destiny and the One with a Curse

**Author's Note:**

> There are going to be many issues with this entire work. Feel free, and I encourage you, to point out any and all issues. This was a first draft I abandoned about a year ago, just so you know.

 

Two blood rival families, De Dracon and Bulova, converged on Blackthorn Hall. Neither though it was a bright idea to come together when they both knew their young children's lives could have been in danger. Both women kept their sons, Ashton Bulova and Caligo De Dracon, tucked away from the world safe in their arms. Their husbands, Jacobitte Cousee and Lagosi De Dracon, argued away about subjects that mostly wouldn't affect their separate families for years to come. The eldest de Dracon child, Rhea Lily, ran to her mother in a last ditch effort to escape the conversations of her father and his adversary. She looked at her five day old brother with wide eyes almost seeing what his future held but also with a slight terror. 

Slowly Rhea moved over to the Bulova boy and looked down at him as Ms Bulova, Sebastianna, showed him to her with pride. He was older than her brother by two weeks but to her his future was incredibly different. Him, little Ashton Bulova was a savior, rescuer of all. To her their futures couldn't have been more different from each other. Ashton was a savior, a hero ever; young Caligo, just days older, looked conflicted and confused, he was cursed. 

The two women holding their current youngsters spoke in soft voices, Sebastianna Bulova and Cleopatra De Dracon knew that something deadly would happen, and happen soon. "We'll keep them away from each other, it's for their own protection," Cleopatra told Sebastianna. Unlike their husbands the women grew up best friends in their younger years. Both of their arranged marriages had driven a spike in their friendship, the two hadn't spoken since Rhea's birth two years ago.  
"They'll have influence on both sides," Sebastianna said. "Our two will always be running into each other for the rest of their lives."  
"Sebi, please I don't think it's the right time to think about their futures when they're this young," Ms De Dracon ended her statement with a hoarse cough that brought up blood into her hand.  
"You lost the right to call me that a long time ago, Clio," Sebastianna spoke in an almost resentful tone.  
Coughs overcame Cleopatra as her body chilled from the nonexistent cold air. "Cleopatra, my love, are you alright?" Mr De Dracon, Lagosi, said running to her.  
"I'm fine," she was getting weaker by the second. "Here we shall return you back to were you belong," he took young Caligo as Rhea clung to her mother.  
"You're dying, Cleopatra," Sebastianna said heat of the moment.  
"And what would you know about people dying Bulova?" Lagosi spat at her.  
"I'm a sorcerers healer, Lagosi it's my job to know."  
"Well I hope you know why because it's your damned fault." "I was never involved!"  
“She'd still be fine if YOU HADN'T BIRTHED THAT CREATURE IN YOUR FILTHY LITTLE ARMS!" Lagosi was angry at this point, angry beyond reason.  
"Come on Sebastianna, we don't need to deal with these filthy bottom feeders," Jacobitte tried to pull his wife by the arm not holding Ashton.  
In the distance Sebastianna heard a quiet voice say, ‘Necromancer’ with that she knew the bad blood between the two families wouldn’t be fixed anytime soon.


	2. One: A New Place

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Like before...

Somethings never change, ever.  
Others change for the better, others for the worse.

~~~~~

As the torturous AYP orchestra, Ms Lykinski, yelled at the playing orchestra once more. She yelled counts at them and others things that nobody cared to listen to. Everyone was sure that the woman just spoke and yelled to only hear the sound of her own voice. The group reached the end of their piece and set down their instruments to listen to the screeching conductor. One instrumentalist, a violaist, grabbed a book out of the bag that hung off his chair instead, one titled ‘The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt’ and began reading. His stand partner reached into his bag to see if he harbored any other books, she discovered only one other book ‘Egyptian Mythology: A Guide to the Gods, Goddesses, and Traditions of Ancient Egypt’ and a folder of sheet music. She opened the book to discover what stories it held though she did prefer norse mythology. 

“Bulova, put the book down,” Ms Lykinski yelled at the boy with the Oxford book.  
He put the book down reluctantly, “Yes, Ms Lykinski.”  
“No...reading.”  
“But the tales of a different time are calling me away from the sound of you awful sounding voice,” he felt an elbow stab into his side from his stand partner, Helena.  
“Ashton, don’t,” she whispered to him.  
“Mr Bulova, comments like that are not appropriate at this time.”  
“Neither are your comments that attack those of use that don’t reside in your favorite three stands of the first violins.”  
“Mr Bulova, if you will, please step outside to calm yourself.”  
“I’ll do even better, I’ll just leave,” Ashton just began packing his viola back up after throwing his music and books in his bag and looked up at her again. “I will leave you with this before I go, Roses are red, violets are blue, I thought Voldemort was ugly, but then I saw you.” Ashton turned sharply and simply walked out with a grin on his face as he heard a choir of ‘ohhh’s coming from the stage. He ran through the halls laughing trying his best to find the front entrance to the concert hall.

\----

The blue mustang belonging to one Jacobitte Bulova sat out in the parking lot of the concert hall, waiting his mischievous son Jacobitte blasted Kansas’ ‘Carry On My Wayward Son’. He saw the small twelve year old walk to the car laughing, and twenty minutes early. Scenarios of how he managed to piss off the conductor ran through his mind, he was still confused how his little Ashton hadn’t been banned from the orchestra yet.   
The twelve year old, Ashton, opened the back car door and threw his viola and bag in the back seat of the car. He then hopped in the front next to his father. "So, when are we leaving?"

\-----

Sebastianna Bulova had been going on and on about it for weeks now, a wedding of an old friend in Greece! Much to her dismay, going to the coastal European country was involved, something she deeply loathed. Airplanes set her on edge and being stuck on one for twelve or thirteen hours, but with that long of a time to be trapped in a compartment 30,000 feet above sea level could be set on edge. To set her mind on other things she readied her family, everything had to be perfect or damn near close to that. She had brought the packed suitcases down from hers and her husband’s room and was in the process of bringing down the ones from her son Ashton’s room when the front door opened. The only things left to do before leaving was gather carry on bags and retrieve her dress and her husband and son’s suits from the dry cleaners.  
Ashton dropped his bags by to front door and ran upstairs. There was an old black jansport backpack that sat in the corner of his room behind the door. He dumped out all of the bags content onto the floor, it was mainly old sketchbooks and coloured pencils, he began putting everything away when he stopped. At the bottom of the pile sat a book, a red book, with mostly blank pages; the pages that were filled were sketches, incredibly detailed amazing sketches, his once "friend" Caligo drew. His drawing were like magick, some Da Vinci level work was done by that kid. Ashton threw the book aside and continued gathering all he'd need for carry on. Books, headphones, charger, ipod, phone, et cetera...et cetera.   
He threw his bag over his shoulder and ran back down stairs. His mother stood at the base of the stairs, waiting for her “slow” son. She held a blue passport with plane tickets stuck inside out to him. Ashton placed his viola case on top of his suitcase then placed his passport in his backpack. When he was younger he had been completely mystified by the idea of leaving the country, going somewhere new.   
He gathered his things and followed his parents out to the car. Jacobitte opened the trunk of the old blue mustang and threw the bags in the back, except the viola. Sebastianna got in the driver’s seat as she lowered the top of the convertible so her son could hop in the back with his viola.   
“To Greece we go!” Sebastianna turned the car key and the engine came to life.


	3. Time to Celebrate

The flight was long. Too long. The food was awful. The chairs were uncomfortable. The first class compartment reeked of booze, and the wifi barely worked. To try and pass the time, Ashton tried to pass the time by marathoning James Bond films on his father’s ipad but soon he grew sick of ‘The name’s Bond...James Bond.’ After being on that god awful plane for what felt like an eternity, he finally heard the phrase he had been so desperate to hear these last few hours, “Now as we begin our descent, for your safety please buckle your seat belts,” the air hostess spoke over the overcome. Ashton let out a sigh of relief that he hadn't realized he'd been holding in. They'd be in Greece soon, Ashton thought to himself as he jumped for joy in his mind.   
All Ashton wanted to do in that moment was open the window next to him and breath in that fresh mediterranean air and feel the sun rays down on his skin. The past month and a half outside of DC had been cloudy, rainy, and over all gross. As a last resort he stared out the window to the land and sea below. Cities rose up on the land, large and grand. Jacobitte pointed out the city that they were about to touch down in, Rome. According to him this would their second stop, the first being in London, England, and Ashton had been asleep at the time. Though there was still a two or so hour flight to Kalamata airport and then a half and hour or so layover in Italy.   
The surroundings outside buildings suddenly started to grow bigger than before as they reached the ground. Within thirty minutes they had touched down and the cabin of the plane burst into applause. Sebastianna Bulova turned around and looked to her husband and son, “Welcome to Italy,” she told them. She said something else in Italian but Ashton didn’t know what she said the only word he understood was ‘food’. And to Ashton that was the only important word in the world at the moment.   
“I heard something involving food, all i want is a caffe latte and panini,” Ashton stated while trying to sound joyful of landing but his voice came across more as someone who was just done with the world.   
“Someone's not happy,” Sebastianna commented.  
“I have been stuck on this god forsaken plane in this god forsaken seat with food I think is desperately trying to poison me. This cabin reeks of booze and James Bond won’t shut up. No, I’m not happy,” Ashton responded to his mother without even dropping the flat expression he was already sporting.  
Sebastianna and Jacobitte just simply laughed at their son and his attitude.   
As the plane pulled into the terminal, Ashton forced his father to pull down his viola and backpack so the minute that plane hatch opened he could bee line for the spacious airport. Within minutes they were locked into the terminal and the door was opened, Ashton climbed over his father and ran out of the cabin.   
“HALLELUJAH!” Ashton exclaimed when he got into the airport holding area, almost everyone turned to look at him and his excitement.  
People began pouring out of the terminal so Ashton took the time to go to the nearest grouping of empty seats. He placed his viola on the ground and backpack on one of the seats, he laid his head down on the backpack and spread out the rest of his body on the seats. After a few minutes he heard the roaring laughter of one Jacobitte Cousee Bulova and the sighs of Sebastianna. This wasn’t a new occurrence. Every time the family travelled somewhere new, and that travel involved plane, Ashton’s inner diva shown through. Jacobitte grabbed the bag from under Ashton’s head as Sebastianna snached up the viola on the ground.   
“Heeeeeeyyyyy, dude not cool!” Ashton shot up and looked his father dead in the eye.  
“Hey, we’re getting food...want some or not?” Jacobitte told him while walking off.  
“Can you bring me back a panini and caffe con panna?”  
“No you’re coming with us child,” Sebastianna grabbed her lazy son’s limp arm and attempted to drag him with her, but he was pure deadweight. "Get up, child of mine," she forcefully pulled him up to his feet.   
“But mother...I shall lie here for an eternety, nothing but the plane to Greece shall cause me to move!”  
“Oh dear lord, not this again.”  
Ashton snickered to himself and grinned widely, but his mother was not having any of it. She set the viola case on the chairs at her son’s feet and hauled her son over her shoulder and picked up the case. “You have no say in this, this is a dictatorship, you are coming with use.”

\----

Jacobitte sat patiently on a little airport cafe tapping away at his phone screen. A breakthrough in an open case, an important case involving the security of the United States, had happened; the prime suspect had given them the names of his associates and who they worked for. So far they could be connected back to a group whose name he hadn’t heard in a very long time, the Ecclesia de Illuminatio. They were a dangerous group and widely considered an urban legend at this point in time. The Ecclesia de Illuminatio was the group that had caused so many to go into hiding, him and his family included. He placed his phone down on the table and allowed himself to think. ‘This can’t be happening, not again...not again,’ he thought. ‘Just when we thought we were safe, they had to show up on our radars. Haven’t they caused enough trouble with their bloody war already?’  
If he weren’t in public (or in the presence of Relici) he would have cursed the nearest object into oblivion, but sadly he couldn’t. Instead of cursing objects into oblivion, Jacobite went of case files mentally to see if he could think of any connections between this case and other past cases, cold or closed. Eventually he thought of a case that had occurred only three years earlier, the victim had been an aerospace engineer for NASA who had been found in his home with unexplainable burn marks across his body, much like the victim of the open case he was working on. ‘Maybe these two have more in common, I’ll have to check when I return,’ he thought to himself.   
He sat back once more, closed his eyes, and tuned out the rest of the world. The world was sereine when you tuned it all out he had learned over the years, it was something he had overlooked in his youth. Somewhere on the long and winding road that everyone journeys on, Sebastianna had taught him that there was peace and calm in this dark twisted world; she had always taught him the meanings of everything from the beginning, the meaning of differences and equalities, the meaning of harmony, the meaning of honesty, and the meaning of acceptance. She had almost become a teacher for him over the years. Suddenly he felt himself being drawn into his thoughts and further and further away from reality; he didn’t hear his wife and son walk up. When he finally came to his senses, his wife and son were drinking coffees and had food in hand and a sandwich and tea sat in front of him.   
“Bout’ time you rejoined the living,” Sebastianna said to him. “Come on we’ve got forty-five minutes till departure.”  
He quickly got up and gathered his things and walked with his family to the next terminal. Ashton kept rambling on and on about how awful airports were causing both Sebastianna and Jacobitte to laugh. They rushed through the crowds of people to get to the terminal as quickly as possible so they wouldn’t miss their flight to Greece. With only five minutes to spare, they made it to the terminal. 

Two hours and fifteen minutes later the plane landed in a Greek airport on the coast. As the passengers poured out of the plane terminal Ashton was slow on his feet unlike when they had landed in Italy. He complained of his legs being asleep and the lights being too bright, if only the slightest thing was wrong he’d complain about it. Though as soon as his parents had gathered their bags the trio booked it out of there as quickly as possible. Within the hour they came to a small ferry man’s dock, with the help of the airports “taxi” service, who knew of the festivities that they would be attending and agreed to take them to the island where everything was being held. He said it would most likely take around two hours or so they’d have to ‘sit tight and enjoy the ride’. Ashton drifted off to sleep within the first thirty minutes so it was quite a sight for him when he woke to them steering towards a island that seemed to glisten with gold and silver. His father explained to him that this was not really a Greek island, but it and a few other islands were a nation of their own that was unknown to most of the world; only certain people could find this place.   
When they docked a group of people, strangely dress, came and ushered them to carriage that looked to be straight from the 1700’s. They were driven to what appeared to be a small cottage of sorts in the middle of a small village that was decked out completely in crimson and silver. It was explained to Ashton that the colours were the colours for the wedding and with that he received the answer he’d been waiting for for over three weeks. They were here for a wedding, and a grand one at that. As they brought their bags inside Jacobitte reminded his wife and son that the festivities began at eight and it was almost six thirty now. Ashton took his bags and explored a bit before settling in. The cottage was a one story dwelling with two bedrooms, a kitchen, and a few other small rooms. He chose the smallest of the two bedrooms for his own, he didn’t want to feel as though he had to unpack everything and throw it every which way. To keep away from the quick pace of everything going on outside his door Ashton quietly dressed in the bizarre outfit his mother had told him to wear for this occasion. She said it was ‘customary’ to wear something like it to festivities like this but to him it seemed like his mother had just packed him a cosplay of Severus Snape when the Order of the Phoenix. After listening to his parents bicker for forty-five minutes, and him finishing reading his book, he decided to leave his isolation and join the living once more.   
Ashton stepped out of his room and into the living area where his parents were. His father was dressed much like him though he had a black cape lined with gold hanging off his right shoulder; his mother seemed to be wearing a gown that on any other day she would be very opposed to wearing, a floor length dark blue number with a high collar and long sleeves with intracate silver embrodery.   
“Ah, yes there you are,” Jacobitte said. “We must be going now.”  
“The box!” Sebastianna exclaimed.  
“I’ll get it,” he ran back to the other room to grab the item in question before hurrying his family out the front door.  
There was a carriage waiting for them with an elaborate crest embellished on the side. One of the two men riding on the back of the carriage hopped off and opened the carriage doors for them, ‘Duke and Duchess Bulova and young Duke Bulova,’ he told them. Ashton was taken aback, Duke? Duchess? What? How come his parents were being addressed with such titles? Why was he being addressed with such a title? He watched his parents climb in but for so odd reason felt as though he was frozen in place.  
“Ashton, darling, come along now,” Sebastianna told her only son.  
Somewhat reluctantly, Ashton hopped in the carriage behind his parents unsure of what would happen next. There were lanterns lining the long stone paved road. People were having a merry old time, drinking, running, releasing excitement into the air. Ashton was amazed by all of them, so carefree and wild it seemed like the celebration would never end. Though the times of watching those in the streets came to an end as the carriage turned into a long dirt drive lined with beautiful trees bathed in gold and light. They drove up to a large gate, gold in colour, and were let in by two guards whom of which opened the gates for them. Little Ashton Bulova finally got a glimpse of their destination and was awestruck by it. A magnificent marble stone palace with golden light pouring out of every window. The two men driving the carriage curved around the center fountain and drove down road off to the left of the palace to follow all the other carriages. They continued down until they were stopped by more guards. To Ashton, the palace might have been magnificent but this place he could only describe as a cathedral of sorts must have been one of the wonders of the world and could quite possibly put some of the world's grandest cathedrals to shame. The three, Jacobitte, Sebastianna, and Ashton, walked up the stone steps into the cathedral; Ashton was completely floored by the beauty of its interior. With incredibly high vaulted stone ceiling, which must have been an architectural wonder when originally built, was bathed in bright vibrant reds, golds, and purples. The walls behind the altar were also nothing short of spectacular too, gorgeous floor to ceiling stained glass images.   
Their seats were close to the front facing the aisle, to Ashton's luck that just gave him more time to gawk at the amazing artistry of the place. From the carvings on the arches to the details in the stained glass there seemed to be a feeling of timelessness in the room.   
Ashton lost himself in the beauty of his surroundings and didn’t notice the crowd stand as the wedding party began to enter. First a dark haired man and an auburn haired woman in golden crowns and ornate dress, then came the bridesmaids and groomsmen. The girls donned long red dresses with silver detailing as the men wore silver outfits, much like his father’s, with dark red details. As the party moved on Ashton could silently hear the crowd's anticipation for the bride. Eventually though, he saw her standing at the end of the aisle with a auburn haired girl standing behind her holding up the train of the dress. As they walked up he caught a glimpse both the girls. The one in white was covered in ornate crystal work and wore a delicate silver tiara that almost blended in with her hair. However, the auburn haired one wore a dress identical to the bridesmaids and her hair seemed to match the dress’ colour perfectly. She delicately laid down the train of the dress and took her place behind the rest of the bridesmaids.  
“We are gathered here today,” the man who looked like her was cosplaying the Pope began. “To join Princessa Olga Mercurivena Venedecci, firstborn to Mercury and Athena Venedecci and heir to the throne of Igniscalcuatio, and Duke Marius Napoleon Bordelon, Duke of the western lands and sea, in holy matrimony. To all whom oppose to this union, speak now or forever hold your peace….”  
Ashton thought to himself, ‘When will this be over, I’m only here for the food.’


	4. Oublier

After what felt like hours of history on the so called Venedecci and Bordelon families and marriage vows, the ceremony was finally over. Olga and Marius walked back down the aisle together as everyone threw dark red rose petals at them, after them everyone slowly filed out of the cathedral to the carriages in the front. They gathered back at the palace and were led into the ballroom. There were tables lining the walls with the beautifully patterned floor center exposed for all to view. Ashton thought that his jaw had just permanently adhered itself to the ground at this point, he was amazed by just about everything.   
There were people everywhere, idly chatting away in little clusters. Though they all fell silent when the seven Venedeccis and four Bordelons entered the room and headed straight for the long table on the far side of the room. The two newly-weds sat first, in the centre, then the others followed suit. Ashton’s parents led him to a table near the front, again, close to the Venedecci family. Talking resumed as a great feast was brought out. Ashton noticed a head of red curly hair dart around the crowd, then a very distinctive head of white blond hiding in the corner.  
The Venedecci family patriarch, a king as Ashton had learned, stood up with his glass in hand. He motioned for everyone to sit, which they did quickly, then cleared his throat.

“Thank you,” he began. “First of all I would like to offer a toast to my daughter and my new son-in-law, if you'll all join me."  
Everyone picked up the nearest glasses to them, empty and full, to join the toast. "To Princess Olga, to Prince Marius," the room chanted. Some people shuffled so that they were closer to tables and therefore closer to drink.   
"Now, now everybody please take a seat," King Mercury Venedecci's voice echoed off the walls. "I would like to offer my gratitude towards all of you for attending this marvelous day for my family. Now to my Olga, my Jupiter, to the one who will one day inherit everything that magick touches in our kingdom…”  
‘…..magick?....MAGICK?!?!?!?!?!?!.......I’m I in a room of crazy people?’ Ashton thought.  
“You are our little flower, who isn’t so little anymore, and one day with Marius are your side and a kingdom to rule you will blossom into the person you were born to be,” Mercury continued.  
Olga or Jupiter, whatever her name is, stood up and hugged her father after saying something that sounded a lot like ,”Oh Papa.”  
They hugged it out and sat back down as dinner was served. Ashton didn’t know what kind of food was being set in front of him. It smelled like steak, potatoes, beans, and a jello of sorts but everything looked just plain wrong. The meat was in a small pyramid and was a very unnatural meat colour, the potato wanna bes were green, beans were a light purple colour, and the jello goub was mint green. He leaned over to his mother and whispered, “I don’t think it's edible, it looks poisonous.”  
“You’ll be fine, eat,” she told him.  
Ashton stabbed at the items on his plate with the golden fork he’d been given. He was growing more and more displeased with the food by the second but also hungrier and hungrier. Finally he succumbed to his hunger and ate whatever was on the plate in front of him.   
He dropped his guard just long enough eat his food, but that proved to be a awful idea. 

\------

People were dancing, some in a raunchy manor, and almost all were drunk to a degree. A roar of laughter grew over the crowd then suddenly died. Nobody moved, nobody spoke though as a group they split and Ashton was able to see what exactly had silenced them. A group of twelve men and one woman stood at the massive golden doors. Ashton pushed forward to get a better look at them some of them had sickly white skin, blood around and dripping from their eyes, and almost black eyes the other ones also had the sickly white skin but they had what appeared to be black veins going up their necks and below their eyes. He heard a muffled “Strigoi mort” come from behind him.  
“The Ecclesia thanks you for your consideration,” the woman at the front of the group states.  
The thirteen get out what looked like wands, daggers, swords, and other weapons and begin hacking away at the group in the room. Blood began to stain the beautiful floor. Screams erupted and panic arose. People were running, trying to escape but that did not work for most. Bursts of purple dust magick drenched the room, and choked out most of the screams.   
Ashton ran from his family and to the nearest corner to hide. Quickly though five other children around his age joined him in torn clothing and blooded skin. There was a girl from the Venedecci family, a white blond boy with ruffled hair that was blood stained, a boy with black shoulder length curly hair tied back, the girl with crazy red curls that Ashton had seen earlier, and someone who Ashton had known for years.   
“Ryan?!? What are you doing here?” Ashton demanded.  
Ryan jumped up very quickly to get a better feel for the surrounding then popped back down, “My family was invited.”  
“I know how to get out of here,” the Venedecci girl said.  
“How?” The black haired boy asked.  
“I’ve lived here all my life.”  
“Then who are you?”  
“Dracara Venedecci.”  
“Oh.”  
"Now come along this-" she stopped and held in a scream. A head rolled to her feet, eyes wide open and trailing blood. It was the woman from the thirteen. In terror, Dracara kicked the head away and scurried quickly. She moved towards a panel in the wall, trying her best to open it. The black haired boy, Raphael as Ashton had learned, helped open the panel and usher the others inside. Dracara was last to join them. They got to their feet as she led them through what seemed to be the kitchens in a hurry. Every few minutes she would look over her shoulder to behind the group to make sure nobody followed them, but for safety she did grab a frying pan as they left in case she was in need of a weapon in the future.  
The white blond boy watched around with wondering eyes. He thought how anyone could possibly hurt another like that and then assemble a group that would do just that.   
They ran and ran through the long winding corridors until they reached the outside. It was a grim sight to behold. Fires burning everywhere. People frantically running and screaming. Menacing laughter from around every corner. Flying weaponry, and purple tinting everything. Ashton saw one of the men from the thirteen walk past the darkened doorway he hid in slouched over, dragging a heavy weapon behind him. The six moved quickly to an overturned carriage with brown curtains. The white blond one was first there as he wrapped himself in the torn fabric from the seats window curtain lying on the ground.

_____________

What was left in the carnage was nothing short of chaotic. People running every which way to try and save themselves and those left alive from the Ecclesia members inside. From a darkened corner, hidden from sight, six children hid in fright. Ashton Bulova, Raphael Winchester, Aragon Vesper, Dracara Venedecci, Ryan Luyddog, and Caligo de Dracon. The white blond boy was tucked away from the others, he thought that they didn’t even know he was there; and he was correct, the five other children were to scared to see what lay behind the brown cloth.

_____________

After what felt like hours, Ashton opened his tired eyes slowly to allow them to adjust to the light. He thought he must have fallen asleep amidst the chaos. A frantic Sebastianna Bulova's voice peirced the silence as she called out for her son. As Ashton lifted his head and looked out of the toppled carriage he finally got a glimpse of the final damage that was done. Bodies lay everywhere amistste the fire and smoke.  
Sebastianna trudged onwards through to find her son. When she saw him, she ran to him as quickly as she could in her dress that had been torn to shambles. Ashton noticed that she wasn't wearing shoes either. She pulled her son from the carriage and held him tight to her chest whispering over and over 'I thought I'd lost you, I thought I'd lost you.' Once she had reassembled herself, Sebastianna led Ashton back to the village where they were staying only to see even more of the wreckage.   
The aftermath of the wedding looked as though there was a massocure but the villiage looked as though all Hel had broken lose. Burnt, crumbling buildings. Fire and smoke with the thick smell of death in the air. Ashton knew they had to get out of here. Inside their cottage, Jacobitte repacked everything, not even thinking to change into something more comforetable, in a hurry. He stopped only for a second when her heard the front door open, in a panicing state of mind he armed himself with a sleek black wand for protecton, only to see his wife and son standing in the doorway.  
"We have to get out of here, now," Jacobitte said quickly. "Ashton gather up you things."  
"Why?" He asked while closing the door.  
"If the Ecclesia knows that we are here,we'll be their next target."  
"What is the Ecclesia?"  
"You mustn't speak of them, you are too young to hear."  
"Now go, darling," his mother told him.  
Ashton went to his room and haphazardly threw everything in his suitcase. The viola case wouldn't fit so he took its shoulder strap and McGuivered it in a way so it could be worn as a backpack. He dragged his luggage into the front room to see his parents standing at the door.  
"I'm sorry, Ashton, but you weren't supposed to know about this," Jacobitte said.  
Sebastianna pulled out a ivory coloured wand, pointing it at her son and spoke, "Oublier."  
Suddenly, Ashton's world when blank, like nothing had ever happened. As he hit the ground, it also went black.


	5. The Boy with Magick

Somethings almost never change, ever. Ashton Bulova, almost thirteen years of age, was exploring his parents collection of books when he came across something peculiar. An old trunk held books on various subjects that could only feed the imagination. Potions, black magick, transformations, something called the veil of invisibility, magick healing, soul separation, spells through the ages, protection from black magick, history books of sorcery, dragon and phoenix encyclopedias, necromancy, curses, all things magical had a book in that old trunk. It got him thinking of what his teachers used to tell him about how magick was just a figment of the imagination and wasn't real, his he went back and showed them this would their views change? Ashton slowly pulled every book out of the old beat up trunk only to discover that there was more and the trunk was larger on the inside. He pulled out a vast array of things, cloaks, cauldrons, a pair or broomsticks, hats that could be witch hats for Halloween, and a gold box. Inside the box was something he would have been surprised to find anywhere else but seeing the other things in the trunk it was kind of expected, three wands. This got Ashton thinking again, were his parents obsessive collectors of witch and wizard memorabilia? 

Ashton tucked the gold wand box in his jacket and threw everything else back in the trunk hastily, except the book about spells through the ages. He clasped the trunk shut and grabbed the nearest blanket and bound the book in it. After looking over his shoulder, to make sure his parents hadn't come down to the crawlspace to look for him, Ashton made a run for it straight for his bedroom. He barreled up the two flights of stairs and ran into his room accidentally slamming the heavy oak door behind him. Quietly Ashton walked over to his viola case, trying not to make anymore noise than he already had, and took the beautiful golden box out of his jacket. He opened the box anymore and examined the delicate wands held within. One seemed to be made of an ebony wood with intricate carvings, an ivory one with gold inlay, and one seemingly made of crystal or glass with a red crystal at the tip that shown beautifully when the light caught it just right.

Lightly, Ashton picked up the ebony wand and unwrapped the spell book opening it to the first page. The table of contents listed things such as "simple spells", "advanced spells", and "healing spells", he turned to the page labeled "simple spells". Ashton recognized the first spell on the page to be latin for light, lux.

He aimed the wand at a dark corner and quietly said, "Lux." Nothing happened but he could feel the wand buzzing in his hand. It wasn't until his eighth or so try a dim light shown from the tip of his wand, though it did not last long. He stared at it in astonishment, there was no button he could have pressed and the tip didn't look to have a fiberoptic light in it. There seemed to be no explanation the light other than the bloody spell actually working. Quickly he reopened the golden box and placed the wand back inside before throwing the box under his viola case then he slid the magick book halfway across his room so it would comfortably sit under his bed and not be seen by his parents. It was late out, nine ten to be exact, and he had school the next day so he climbed up into bed not even caring about the fact he was still wearing his day clothes curled up and slowly was conquered by sleep.

\---------

"Ashton, darlin, wake up," his mother said gently.  
Ashton replied with a groaning sound and totally disregarded the fact that his mother was still standing over him. He rolled over so his face was pressed into the fluffy blue pillows and the comforter buried him.   
"Darling, please you must get up now," his mother pestered him.  
"Five minutes, give me five minutes!" Ashton replied.  
"Five minutes, then I'll be back," she walked out of the room and Ashton let out a sigh of relief. It was a holiday for god sakes, why must he walk up at seven in the morning. He jumped out of bed and dressed then grabbed the box and box, throwing them in this old black bag. Ashton listened to see if his parents were downstairs before trying to make his escape. His mother, Sebastianna, sounded to be in the kitchen making breakfast and his father, Jacobitte, seemed to be fussing with the television. Ashton took the emergency escape ladder out and unrolled it out the window and made his escape. The grass was still dewy but the temperature said it clearly wasn't morning. He ran to the tree line without stopping before looking to see if anyone had followed him, no one had. Ashton ventured a little into the forest to go to its small clearing to inspect the book and wand like instruments. 

Ashton threw the bag on the ground and sat down. He pulled the book out and inspected it. The book looked old, it was leather bound with gold lettering and an ornate crescent moon in the center of the cover. 

“Hey, whatcha got there?” A stranger said.  
“JESUS!” Ashton said with a jump before looking upwards.  
There was a dashing boy with longish dark haired hanging from a tree branch above him, “I most definately am not!” He flipped off the branch, “Name’s Winchester...Raphael Winchester, but you can call me ‘Punk Rock’."  
"And why would I do that?"  
"Because that's what's done."   
"And if I don't follow your logic?"  
"Then too bad, oh well, that's your problem then. Your name is?"  
"Ashton Bulova."  
"Bulova? As in House Bulova?"  
"I don't know, maybe, there could be several 'Bulovas' but not all have to be related."  
"Then to make sure you are who I think you are, what are your parents names?"  
"And why should I tell you?"  
"You had two younger sisters, twins, right? Evie Romania and Kate Italia. Evie died of scarlet fever at two and Kate died from polio at four."  
"How did you know that?"  
"Ha so you are who I think you are!"  
"Maybe..."  
A small pale blond boy that looked no older than twelve wandered into the clearing,"Oh, hello there." His gaze fixed on Ashton," You."  
“Me?” The pale boy spoke.  
“Yes, you.”  
“What about me?”  
“Why are you here...Caligo?”  
“I was in the forest a-and I ran a-a-across Raph-ael and...and I foll-owed him.”  
“Oh quit it with the stuttering act, we both know your vocal patterns are fine.”  
“O-oh.”  
“Leave.”  
“O-okay then…,” Caligo turned around and promptly left, every few steps he’d look back at Ashton and Raphael with a bit of terror in his eyes.  
“Geez, what was that all about?” Raphael asked.  
“Let’s just say there's bad blood between us.”  
“I gathered that, what else?”  
“We used to be best friends,” Ashton sat back down and his book and the gold wand box. “We carved ‘A+C’ in a tree along time ago and said we’d be best friends forever, then one day he started acting all weird and said my family was a traitor to them all. He never told me what ‘traitor to them all’ meant but now I’ve got a few ideas.”   
"But did you see the way he looked at you? It was like you were the ocean and he was desperate to drown."  
"Nothing happened between us; I promise."  
"That's what you say now," Raphael spoke under his breath.

Over the next few hours Ashton learned all kinds of things from this boy Raphael, stories and spells, rituals and curses, white magick and black magick, paganism and the occult. There were so very many things he was being told it was almost impossible to believe they were true. Raphael showed him a few things with his own wand such as levitating objects i.e. one of the other wands and surrounding rocks, setting things on fire with just the flick of the wrist, and what seemed to be moving clouds much faster than they naturally did. Raphael had also conjured up a sundial device so they could read the time, currently it was well past noon and Ashton's parents were probably worried sick about him. 

"Here I'll teach you something that I bet isn't in that old book of yours," Raphael told him.  
"What?" Ashton seemed curious, if it were a spell it had to be in that book.  
"Repeat after me, Valo. Vah-low."  
"Wah-low."  
"No, Vah-low."  
"Vuah-low."  
“Vah-low.”  
“Vah-low.”  
"Now put it together."  
"Valo," Ashton aimed his wand at the ground but nothing happened. "Valo!"  
"No, it's not a spell. It's a greeting, it means 'hello' in Ritreyon."  
"What's Ritreyon?"  
"The old language of sorcery, not many people speak it anymore."

They both heard a loud rustling of leaves and someone running towards them. "ASHTON SCOTLAND BULOVA, WHERE ARE YOU?" His mother yelled.

They both sat and looked at each other for a second before the woman burst into the clearing. "Ashton, where have you been all-," she seemed to notice the wands and book on the ground in that split second. "Where did you get that?"  
"Nowhere, I....I found it."  
"You were in the crawlspace space weren't you?"   
"Maybe."  
"Ashton, what have your father and I told you about that place?"  
"Its dark and dangerous, I should never go down there. But mum, what is this?"   
"An old family joke is all."  
"How is it a joke? What Raphael showed me worked perfectly fine."  
"Raphael?"  
"That is I," Raphael spoke to Mrs. Bulova. "Winchester...Raphael Winchester this is."  
"A Winchester? I thought I recognized you, you look just like your mother."  
"I've been told that a lot, sadly she left when it was too young to remember her."  
" I’m sorry, Ashton we must go now. Maybe you can see Raphael some other time,” the kind-hearted woman spoke.   
“


	6. The Girl with Fire for Hair

Sebastianna pulled her son away from the Winchester boy and headed home with him. She was trapped in a furious state. The one thing she had tried to keep a secret from her son for so long was now known and she knew he's ask questions, it was in his nature to be curious. 

Ashton wondered why his mother was acting so weird. When something like this had happened, maybe not going in the crawlspace, she had been quite mellow about the whole ordeal. He knew his father would tell him. It all still seemed unreal to him and with his luck it was all cheap party tricks. The air surrounding the two was thick and hard to breath in but it was also laced with so many questions could probably fill several books. Ashton thought about the golden box and how its contents would buzz with life in his hand when held them, how the book of so called spells seemed so whimsical, and the stories that had crawled from Raphael’s mouth to Ashton’s ear were repeating themselves in his mind. 

The two walked on aways before Ashton’s mother finally burst, “What on earth where you thinking? Half the artifacts in that room can kill you!”  
“You and Dad kept it locked up for so long, I thought maybe I should be allowed to see what's in there but I knew you’d say no so I had to sneak in. What is all of that in there? And what do you mean half the artifacts in there can kill me?”  
“We knew we couldn’t hide it forever, any of it. Your father and I were going to tell you when you turned sixteen, but your curiosity took over and you found a way in that room.”  
“What do you mean ‘found a way in?’ I just opened the door?”  
“Thats what I was afraid of.”  
“Afraid of what?”  
“The war has weakened all of our magick, the wards aren't working that well anymore.”  
“What wa-,” Ashton was cut off by his mother silencing him.  
“Quiet,” she then put a finger to her lips emphasizing her command. 

A rustle of leaves caught her attention and suddenly so did a streak of bright red. A girl ran past them, long bright red curly hair following her as a little green creature flew beside her. The girls arms weren’t covered so Ashton managed a quick glance at the back of her right arm, a black ring holding a triangle inside with a triangle upside down within the first triangle the symbol seemed oddly familiar. She ran with no shoes before abruptly stopping and turning to them. All she did was point a wand at them and say, ‘Tegere fusco’ and suddenly everything was pitch black. He could sense her presence still there as he fumbled with the bag on his back trying to pull out the golden box. At last he managed to retrieve the box and pulled out the crystal wand he’d been using earlier. ‘Fiat lux,’ was all he said, it was something that Raphael had taught him earlier, and the cloak of darkness slowly depleted around them. Ashton’s mother looked at him as though he’d just told her he’d murdered an entire town, the amazement or shear fear was that strong in her facial expression.  
“Even I couldn’t manage that wand at your age!” She said. “Your father will be quite pleased to hear of this, and your Grandfather.”  
“Is it special in anyway?”  
"Its practically hell on earth, so I suggest you put it down before it puts you down."  
"I've been messing with it all day though, it hasn't done anything to me."  
"Count yourself lucky."

Ashton took another look around to see if the red haired girl was still there but she wasn't. The symbol on her arm still seemed to reside in the forest area, "What was that? The thing on her arm."  
"The circular thing?"  
"Yeah."  
"A symbol for one of the clans."  
"What clans?"  
"Come now, your father and I have much to tell you."

Ashton followed his mother quietly as she weaved in and out of the trees until they reached the end of the forest. By the time they reached the house on the hill, their house, his mother had retrieved the black wand from the box and was holding it in her hand as he held the crystal one. His father stood at the back door waiting, he looked like he was about to say something but when he saw the wands he stopped. A worried expression washed over him as he noticed what his only son held in his hand it seemed as though the wands magick had stolen his voice.   
"Sebastianna?" He questioned his wife.  
"The wards are down, we have to tell him now," she led Ashton and her husband into the kitchen to sit at the dining table.  
"Will you two just tell me what in the hell is going on?" Ashton said in response to the looks his parents gave each other.  
“First things first, I’d like to see what you already know,” Ashton’s father said to him.  
“What do you mean?”  
“Of this world, the one of magick.”  
“I know I shouldn’t have, but I went into the crawlspace last night. When I opened the door it looked like I had just opened a seal that hasn’t been opened in a long time given the amount of dust it gave off. The first thing I did was look around and that was when I found the trunks covered in a white sheet, I pulled of the sheet and pulled out the nearest and easiest to retrieve trunk. It was a silver-ish colour but it looked like it had been carried through a war zone, after I opened the lid the trunk appeared to be larger on the inside. There was a lot of different things inside it, books on potions, black magick, transformations, something called the veil of invisibility, magick healing, soul separation, spells through the ages, protection from black magick, history books of sorcery, dragon and phoenix encyclopedias, necromancy, and curses. Then underneath the books were cloaks with sleeves, cauldrons large and small, a pair or broomsticks, pointy witches hats, and the gold box of wands. I took one of the spellbooks and the golden box then ran upstairs and into bed. What do these thing have to do with anything?” Ashton was now obviously confused and all he wanted was answers.  
“Jac, you knew we’d have to tell him at some point. He is a true Callidus, Jacobitte,” Ashton’s mother spoke to her father.  
“What's with all this magick? What is this ’Callidus’ thing? And why was Raphael so interested in the fact that Bulova could be part of this ‘House Bulova’ thing?”  
“We know you’re confused, but sweetheart it was all for your own safety,” she said. “Your father and I are what most people call witches and wizards but we prefer the terms ‘Sorcerer’ and ‘Sorceress’. Very few non-magical folk know of our existence, but those who do keep it top secret. You know what they teach you in school, the scientific name for reli- humans?”  
“Homo sapiens, but what's that got to do with anything?”  
His father spoke up this time, “We're what you call, scientifically, Homo sapien magicus. Theres a whole community of those with magick in their blood.”  
"There are?"  
"Yes, both your mother's family and my family are apart of it. There are people all around you that have magick in their blood."  
"Like the boy I met earlier?"  
"Who was he?"  
"He had shoulder length dark hair but almost white skin, like the other boy, his name was Raphael Winchester."  
"The Winchesters are most definitely a family with magick blood."  
"What other boy?" Ms Bulova asked.  
"A boy I used to be friends with, but then he started acting all weird saying Mama cursed his mother and that's why she's dead but then one day he just left and I hadn't seen him since until today."  
"What did he look like?"  
"Petite stature, pale almost silvery skin, practically white hair, round soft features, and seafoam coloured eyes."  
"And his name?"  
"Caligo de Dracon."  
"Another family name with magick in their blood."  
"How?"  
"de Dracon was a family name once the most revered sorcery name in existence, and legend has it that at one time an entire army of dragon hence why their name was 'de Dracon', it means 'Of the dragon'. Most of them had this dark appearance with their black hair and black eyes but there was always that one born every few centuries with the pale completion you described, hundreds of years ago those few people were said to be some of the most in humanly beautiful beings in all of existence."  
"Oh."  
"Yeah, oh, never trust a de Dracon."  
"So now what?"  
"We should probably tell him about the war," Ms Bulova told her husband.  
"What war?"  
"Fifteen or so years ago some relici, non magick folk, came after those with magick blood. The six clans united, but most of them were cut down and slaughtered. Our numbers in the world once reached five point seven million now there's less than two million of us, not including the other beings. Houses within the clans turned on each other, houses that already had bad blood between each other the relationships just got worse," Mr Bulova took a break before continuing. "We tried making amends with the de Dracons when you were born but as it seems, everything just got worse."

\---------

Everything seemed to be getting stranger by the minute, hour, and day around here in Ashton’s mind. Just a week age he was a normal kid with normal things to worry about, now, out of his own curiosity, he was living in a world of magick with a war going on that was slaughtering sorcerers and sorceresses by the thousands. People around him looked at him differently and his parents were more distant. They were always held up in the study till the early hours of the morning with other people discussing things in a language that was completely foreign to him, his best guess was that it was Ritreyon.   
He started looking at the world through a different perspective and noticing all the things that had happened to him at home that magick could have been involved in like Mother’s hatred for cleaning yet the entire house would be clean in under an hour, Father’s ‘Man Cave’, as mother called it, being completely organized and spotless when just hours before it was as though a tornado and hurricane had rolled right on through there.  
Ashton needed answers that nobody was willing to give him, and from what he’d been told, he wasn't allowed to go up to some random stranger and ask, ‘Hey, tell me everything you know about magick and sorcery this instance.’ He was trapped and shut out, the world around him was slowly imploding and he had no way to escape. 

He needed answers to untold questions  
He needed explanations to things that theoretically shouldn’t be possible.  
He needed people to show him good from bad.  
He needed someone to show him the way.  
He needed Raphael.

If there was anyone who could tell him what he needed to know, he might as well go to the first person he interacted with that told him about this wide and mysterious world of magick. The only question left was, how was he supposed to find him?


	7. The Book Thief

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There are so many issues with this as a hole, so please point out as many as you so desire to.

Ashton gathered the various books he had from the trunk and the wand he'd been using then threw them in a book bag of his from school. At daybreak he made sure his parents were still asleep when he returned to the crawlspace. This time he threw his bag on the pile of trunks and focused on the door next to the pile that had apparently been covered last time he was here. The door was constructed of a dark wood with iron hinges that looked quite old, in the center of the door the very same crescent moon from the trunk of books. He stood back and thought for a second if he should open it and explore or if he should go find Raphael and the two of them should explore. He decided on the ladder option, even though both could potentially be equally dangerous.   
Ashton turned and left the crawlspace again, then he left the house and ventured into the forest. Maybe, he thought, If I wait in the clearing again Raphael will wander in again. He waited an hour, pacing back and forth, before nearly going home when the boy with shoulder length hair stumbled into the clearing.  
“I was worried you’d never show,” Ashton said quietly.  
“I come here every morning and afternoon, helps me escape my siblings, good-y two shoes brother and sister,” Raphael emphasised the ‘good-y’.   
“I need your help.”  
“In what?”  
“Answers, Raphael! ANSWERS!”  
“Can’t you just ask your parents?”  
“They’re a bit in dispose.”  
“Not going to question.”  
“Come on, I need your help here.”  
“Fiiiinnneee.”

The two ran off back to Ashton’s family home, unrealizing of the fact the unnaturally pale boy was following them ten feet behind. 

\-----

They arrived at the door in the crawlspace ten or so minutes later, the pale boy cloaked in the veil of invisibility still close behind. Both were weary of opening the door, unsure of where it led to. Ashton stood there, looking from the door to the old key in his hand and then to Raphael, pondering if his should or should not open the old door when finally he thought, Ahhh...What the hell, why not. He put the key in the lock and slowly turned the key when the two heard what seemed to be a lead ball dropping. Cautiously, Raphael pulled the door open revealing what was hidden within. The door seemed to be the gateway between the old dirty crawlspace and a big open dark room, one that most definitely shouldn’t be there. The pair stepped through and were hit by a sudden burst of cold air they looked around and saw that they were in what seemed to be a great hall of some type. The room was painted dark colours and furnished in dark woods creating an apperceive that made the place look old and abandoned.   
There was an overall unpleasant feeling as the two explored further. They uncovered an old broken grand piano, a sitting room in need of repair, and an old dusty library with almost endless shelves of books. The two thought this, the library, would be a good place to start looking for answers.   
"Raphael, have you ever heard of the 'Veil of Invisibility'?" Ashton asked while looking over old cracked book spines with titles in languages he didn't recognize.   
"Its an old spell, and a difficult one at that. Only masters of magick have been able to manage it or so children of masters but those are few and far between.”

Ashton continued looking in the shelves of books when an old leather-bound book with gold lettering caught his attention. The book spine only said ‘Sinclair’, he pulled out the book feeling like he recognized the word from somewhere. A name? Possibly. He tugged the book over to the large stone table in the center of the room and set it on top. Ashton discovered something on the front page, something that had been pressed there for a very long time. A little gold medallion on a string with backwards lettering was all it was, plain and simple. But there was something odd about it, the medallion was metal so theoretically, if it was here a long time, it should be cold but it felt as though someone had been holding it before him and it was still warm. He set the medallion down and focused his attention on the book instead. He carefully turned the cover page to reveal that he couldn’t read the text at all, the text was definitely not written in english.   
“Raphael, come here,” Ashton beckoned his new friend over to him to show him what he’d found.  
“What book ya’ got there?” Raphael replied as he walked over.  
“Something about ‘Sinclaire’, I don’t know.”  
“Let me see,” Raphael turned the book to him. “Latin… not suspicious at all.”  
“Can you read it?”  
“Yes I can read it, Im not illiterate boy.”  
“I mean do you know what it says.”  
Raphael puffed up his chest with an overabundance of confidence, “Why yes I can.”  
“Can ya’ tell me?”  
“If I have to,” Raphael sounded over dramatic...again. “Olde and wise family Sinclair...one othe the oldest and most rized sorcery families in europe… powerful leaders...blah blah blah...first ruling dynasty to unify the sorcerers of old...first to tame dragons….blah blah blah… first to ride dragons….predecessors to the Venedeccis...and so forth and so on.”  
“Who are the Venedeccis?”  
“Current ruling family.”  
“Ruling what?”  
“Like ...ok they’re the government and so is their court.”  
“Court?”  
“Like Congress or Parliament, except the way you get into the court is more interesting.”  
“How do you get into this court?”  
“A game called ‘Tier’, traditionally it's where the best of the best sorcerers and sorceresses compete in a fight to the death, the one who wins gets a seat in the court but this only occurs when one of the court seat holders resigns or dies in office. A game was held a few years back and boy was it exciting. Games usually last a week, this one held out two and a half days.”  
“Is that good?”  
“It bloody fan-freaking-tastic! The amount of blood, guts, gore, and sheer violence put ALL horror movies to shame.”  
“Ok.”  
Ashton looked down again at the book but his eyes drifted to the medallion instead. He had mistakenly thrown it on what seemed to be a mirror which helped him immensely in reading it.

The final sancta gradale waits beneath the dragon’s den.  
Surrounded in author’s finest works.  
Vesta and Earth protect her.  
At last she falls beneath the starry skies.

 

‘Weird,’ Ashton thought. Who was protected by Vesa and Earth? What is the final ‘Sancta Gradale’? “Raphael is ‘Sancta Gradale Latin?”  
“Yeah, why?”  
“What’s it mean?”  
“Holy Grail, I think.”  
“Ok then.”  
“Hey what you got there?”  
“A medallion, it had the ‘Sancta gradale’ written on it.”  
“Whats it say?”  
“Come over here and read it for yourself.”  
“Fine,” Raphael promptly took the medallion out of his hands and read its inscription in a low muttering voice. “What the hell does ‘dragon’s den’ mean?”  
“Your guess is probably is as good as mine.”  
“Ok then, Imma go look at more books,” Raphael walked back over to the bookshelves and continued looking as he did before Ashton called him over.  
“Im going to go explore some more,” Ashton stepped out of the library and back into the long dark corridor lined with creepy paintings whose eyes seemed to follow him everywhere. There was a large window at the end of the corridor partially covered in thick velvet looking drapes, he moved the drap back slowly to get a better view of what was outside...they were most definitely not outside of Washington DC anymore. There was mountains and a lush green field two things you'd not find in the area around there.   
Ashton let the drapes fall back over the window as he turned and went down the hall in the opposite direction. The walls were lined with old flaking paintings each with a gold name tag under them with a name. When the hall opened up to the grand room again he noticed a small table next to the right hand set of stairs with a photo album sized book, when he walked over and tried to pick it up it vanished without a trace. Puzzled, he went up stairs feeling the need to explore the upper level. The upstairs was a little bit neater, but that wasn’t saying much. A dark burgundy rug covered the mahogany floors, the carpet seemed to be almost endless in several directions. Something seemed to draw him down the hallway to his right, almost as it there was an unseen force pulling him towards it.  
A woman seemed to be in the hall, though she payed no attention to him as she stepped into a room. He followed but stopped at the door, caught off guard by the name on the door. A gold placard, in cursive writing, said ‘Ashton Scotland’...was this his room at one time? He looked into the room and saw the woman standing near a small book shelf next to the window.   
“Hello?” He questioned her, noticing she was slightly transparent...was she a ghost?  
“Hello, Ashton,” her voice was almost song like with a hint of a french accent.   
“You knew me?”  
“I knew your mother before I died. A very kind woman she, loved everything about life. And she loves you very much, always will. Come...sit,” she stood next to a large plush chair.  
“uhm...ok,” wearily Ashton made his way over to the chair and sat next to the ghost woman.  
“I see her in you, same spirit and curiousness.”  
“You knew her well?”  
“Very.”  
“Oh…,” he took a good look at the woman and seemed to remember her from an old photograph. She had waist length loose light strawberry blonde curls, was no taller than 5’5, had a very petite build, and wore a teal long dress - Ashton most definitely recognized her from an old photograph.  
“You probably don’t remember me though, last time we met you were just mere weeks old.”  
“I don’t remember much from before I turned four. But this place, I remember it almost as if I’ve been here once in a dream.”  
“It was no dream, your family once lived here.”  
“What is this place?”  
“Blackthorn Hall, the traditional home of the Bulova family for centuries. Your mother, Sebastianna, decided a long time ago, long before you were born and before your parents were wed, that this would be your room and every night she would read to you by the light of the moon.”  
“I’m sorry to ask you this but where are we?”  
“There is no need to be sorry for asking young one, we are in the Italian Alps.”  
“THE ITALIAN ALPS?!?!?!”  
“Child you must calm your voice or you may wake the keepers.”  
“My parents are sorcerers, apparently everyone around me is capable of magick, I’m talking to a ghost, and I walked through a door that transported me from Washington DC to the frEAKING ITALIAN ALPS,” Ashton muttered to himself thought the end of his statement came out a bit louder than he’d expected. “What has life come to? I’m going back to Raphael now, bye.”  
Ashton ran out of the room only to be greeted by another woman, or more accurately a young girl, at the entrance to the hallway. She stood there staring at him with wide eyes.   
"Hello there, little one," Ashton walked up to her and crouched down to her height.  
Quietly she responded, "Hi."  
"What's your name? I'm Ashton."  
"Nite, your Mrs Bulova's son?"  
"Yes, where's your family?"  
"Grandmama is downstairs in the kitchen, do you want to want to speak to her?"  
"That would be great."  
Little Nite grabbed his hand and led him down the hall, the other set of stairs, through a hallway hidden by a tapestry, and through a wall before arriving at a rather large kitchen. A woman with gray hair stood by the sink washing dishes when they entered the room. "Nite, darling, is that you?" She asked.  
"Yes, Grandmama, I have found Mr Bulova," Nite's voice sounded a little more high pitched than before.  
"Jacobitte, Is that you?"  
"No, I'm Ashton?"  
"Ashton? Last time I saw you you were just three years old, I snuck your favorite lemon cakes up to your room while your mother and father were saying goodbyes to friends in the drawing room."  
"Mother never makes lemon cakes anymore, she always says someone had the world's best recipe, but refused to tell her.”  
“Sounds just like her, the lemon cakes were always her favorite. Had to charm the door when she was younger so she wouldn’t sneak down and steal them in the middle of the night or when they were freshly baked. Clever one, that girl.”  
“Pardon me asking, but is there any ghosts here?”  
“I take it you’ve met Mrs de Dracon.”  
“Does Mrs de Dracon have long strawberry blonde curls?”  
“And wear a teal coloured dress?”  
“Yes.”  
“Then, upon occasion, this residence is haunted.”  
“Why upon occasion?”  
“Sometime she leaves, says she’s ‘returning home’.”  
“Another question, if I may, who are the ‘Sinclairs’?”  
“An ancient and glorious sorcerer bloodline, any to be apart of it should be honored.”  
“Oh, thank you.”  
“Darling, is your mother here? I really must speak with her.”  
“oh...uhm...she’s not..available right now.”  
“You found the door, didn’t you?”  
“The one that connects two places that are 4,106 miles apart? Then yeah I did find it.”  
“You better go back boy, before it never lets you leave.”  
“Before what...hey...wait come back,” but it was no use the old woman and the girl were gone.

Ashton ran back out the way he came and tried to find his way back to Raphael and the library. Eventually he did find his way back without running into the Nite, the old woman, or the ghost. He weaved his way through the corridors and managed, probably by luck, to get back to the library.   
"Good you're back," Raphael said. "I found a little something following us," he went to his left and grabbed someone- a very blonde boy- by his shirt collar and dragged him over.  
"de Dracon, what are you doing here?"  
"I could ask you the same thing," he said bitterly.  
"I found him snooping in a book titled 'Ecclesia de Illuminatio'. I managed to get the book from him."  
"de Dracon, get out of here," Ashton spat at his once friend.  
"There's no need to be bitter, Ashton," he replied.  
"I'm not being bitter," he says bitterly with a bitter expression.  
"I've got a few books for the two of us, made sure he had none, so we can figure out how to get back now," Raphael added.  
"Ok then, come along book thief."

The pair, now trio, made their way back to the door that got them here and first thing they did was push Caligo through. Next, Raphael tried to step through, but turned around as he heard footsteps running away from him. Ashton had forgotten the medallion, there was something about it made him feel like it was really important. He grabbed the medallion but on the return he literally ran into Raphael.  
"We gotta go," Raphael said, pulling Ashton back to the door.  
"I know, I know," Ashton said as they stepped out through the connecting door.


	8. Danger Lurks Near

Something felt wrong when Ashton and Raphael stepped into the crawlspace and Caligo wasn't there. In a moment of panic, the two looked around the crawlspace for the pale boy but came up empty handed. With their luck he'd escaped and ran into Ashton's parents and then everything would go downhill from there. Raphael gave Ashton a look that said, 'You go first, I shouldn't be here' and he did, trying to mentally figure out a way to get both Raphael and Caligo out without his parents seeing them. But as it seemed it was already too late. Mrs Bulova sat Caligo down in the kitchen, after she found him wandering the house, and gave him a glass of water to drink. She was trying to keep a calm, cool demeanor as the boy sat there but inside she was ready to explode. A de Dracon in her house, this was outrageous! She looked up from the sink as she hear two pairs of footsteps come up the stairs.  
Ashton entered the kitchen, followed by Raphael, and froze. In his mind, he was dead meat. If looks could kill, the daggers from the stair his mother was giving him could most definitely have killed him three times over.  
"Ashton, darling, will you please escort Mr de Dracon and Mr Winchester out," Sebastianna Bulova asked her now terrified son.  
"Okay," Ashton led Raphael and Caligo out the backdoor in complete silence before returning with his head bowed.   
"Now what I want to know is why a Winchester and a de Dracon where in my house, one is bad enough. Do you know how dangerous those people are?" His mother was fuming.  
"No," Ashton replied in a low timid voice.  
"Those families are deadly dangerous."  
"How?"  
"The Winchesters have their army of the un-dead and the de Dracons have an entire fleet of bloody dragons! Don't you see why your father and I kept this hidden from you? People are dangerous and they only get worse when you give them power."  
"Just two families isn't the reason why you'd keep this sort of thing hidden from me."  
"They’re the reason we’re at war, child!”  
“War?"  
"Yes, war, child of mine."  
"How long has this war been going on?"  
"Since 1818."  
"One hundred and ninety four years and this is the first I'm hearing about it?"  
"Many families have hidden in plain sight, with the Relici, in order to keep their children safe. We're losing hundreds a day to this war, it's no longer safe for the children of sorcerers and sorceresses."  
"Oh."  
"Yeah, oh, it's a dangerous world out there. Your father and I were just trying to shield you from it for as long as we could, we were planning to tell you when you turned sixteen, that's usually when we start to come into our magick, but your curiosity took over and you found out about the fact that magick runs through your veins."  
"Who started the war?"  
"People long ago, followers of the Ecclesia de Illuminario, the Custos de Divinus."  
"I've heard of that."  
"I highly doubt it."  
"Raphael and I were in a library and we came across several different books, one being titled 'Ecclesia de Illuminario'."  
"Where is this library?" She seemed on edge with the mention of the library.  
"At Blackthorn Hall."  
Sebastianna's eyes went wide, "How did you get there?"  
"The door in the crawlspace."  
"Damnit, I knew we should have destroyed that years ago," she mumbled to herself.

Ashton knew he had done something wrong, so he excused himself to his room and stayed there till dinner. He pulled out a book on potions and began reading. It was almost dark when he finished and there was a light knock on his bedroom door. He closed his book and set it down on his bed and crossed the room to open the bedroom door. One Jacobitte Cousee, his father, stood on the other side of the door with a soft look on his face and a plate in his hands.   
"Can I come in?" He asked gently.  
"I guess so," Ashton turned and went and sat back on his bed.  
"You didn't come down for dinner, so I brought something up for you."  
"Mamas mad at me, I went somewhere I shouldn't of and two people she didn't trust ended up in the house."  
"Mama is just trying to keep you safe," his father's normal ascent lightened immensely and for once he sounded as though he hadn't grown up in the Scottish countryside. "But I see now that now that you're just as curious and clever as I was at your age."  
"How?"  
"You managed to sneak around to the gateway between here and Blackthorne, yes your mother told me, and managing simple spells without any formal training."  
"Is that a big accomplishment?"  
"Yes, very, now eat and we'll speak more in the morning."  
"You aren't mad?"  
"No, but I am a little curious of something."  
"What?"  
"Who were the two people that were let in the house?"  
"Raphael Winchester, he's my new friend, and Caligo de Dracon, we don't get along anymore. "  
"Were you friends with this Caligo at one point?"  
"Yeah, but then he started acting weird and left."  
"Ok," Mr Bulova spoke in an almost analysing tone of voice, trying to understand the situation. "Eat up."  
"Ok," Ashton stabbed at the food on his plate but had no appetite to eat it. He set it aside on his floor on top of the potions book next to his viola case before climbing into bed and falling into a restless sleep.

\--------

Ashton woke up feeling tired but also feeling tired. He decided that maybe playing his viola would help him wake, not caring what everyone else in the house thought. Slowly but surely he began to play a piece by the name of Danse Macabre., but suddenly he abruptly stopped. There was something drawn on the inside of his viola case! It had triangles, and eye, and what appeared to be wheat in the background...it also happened to be a symbol he’d seen before, a symbol he’d seen at Blackthorne Hall. But where in Blackthorne Hall had he seen it? Maybe Papa could tell him what it was.  
He ventured downstairs quietly, completely oblivious to what day it was until he reached the kitchen. Red velvet pancakes, peaches his parents remembered his birthday when he’d completely forgotten all about it. And on top of that there was school today, he needed to escape, NOW.


	9. All That Jazz

Ashton sneaked back upstairs and gathered his school stuff, put his viola back in its case, and gathered one of the smaller magick books, the 'Veil of Invisibility'. He almost left before seeing one of the wands, the ivory one with gold inlay, laying on his bookshelf so he threw it in his viola case before closing the lid. Silently, he checked to see if anyone was upstairs before throwing his bag out his bedroom window and quietly making his way downstairs. It was just his luck when he realized his mother wasn't in the kitchen anymore, with his viola case in hand Ashton grabbed two pancakes from the stove then ran out back to gather his book bag. He ran down the street and sat on the front steps on his friend Ryan's front porch. It wasn't long before he heard the voice of Mrs Luyddog, Ryan's crazy, but very sweet mother.  
"Ashton Bulova, is that you?" She bellowed.  
"Yes, ma'am," Ashton stood up and faced her.  
"Young man, get inside Ryans eating in the kitchen. I'll set you a plate," Mrs Luyddog invited him in before stopping him, "Oh and Ashton, Happy Birthday."  
"Thank you," he made his way into the kitchen only to see Ryan sitting ever so elegantly with her head in a book. "Ryan, you've kinda got syrup on your face."  
"Yeah I know," she said with her mouth full of waffle. "Why you here?"  
"I'm escaping my folks."  
"Ok then, happy birthday."  
Mrs Luyddog then set a plate down on the counter for him," Eat up, school starts in forty minutes."  
Ashton forgot all about his pancakes because some of Mrs Luyddog's wonderful cooking was in front of him. Ten minutes later she was also shooing the pair out the front door and down to the bus stop.  
"Ryan, you know you have to wear shoes to school?" Ashton asked.  
"Oh right, come with me. Maybe Mom will drive us to school," she said before running off with Ashton trailing after her. Mrs Luyddog stood out front with Ryan's two older brothers, Lance and Lin, holding a pair of shoes in her hand.  
"Guinevere Alexandria, how many times do we have to tell you you have to wear shoes in public," Lance said to her.  
"Shut up, Lance," she grabbed her shoes and ran back to the bus stop with Ashton just as the bus was arriving.  
The two got a seat in the middle of the bus, sadly just two seats in front of a girl known to torment other kids in their grade. "Ah, Guinevere, got yourself a little boyfriend?" She taughted them.  
"Shut it, Selene," Ashton spat at her. The two had been in the same class every year since kindergarten and now everyone but her little group seemed to hate her or be scared of her, usually both.  
“Oh, Bulova, don’t be so hostile,” Selene said as she moved up a seat to be right behind them.  
“Put a sock in it, Bowings,” Ryan said back to her.  
The pair tried their best to ignore the pest by the name of Selene Bowings. Selene would periodically pull Ryan’s long ashy blonde braid over the back of the seat and mess with it to try and get their attention like she had the past four years. Ashton and Ryan knew all of her moves to try and gain attention, and this was just the tip of the iceberg. As the bus arrived at the school, the two were growing more and more impatient to get off the bus by the second. When the bus doors opened Ashton and Ryan scrambled to get their things as quickly as possible and leave. They quite literally ran into the school building in an attempt to lose track of Selene. As they burst into Mrs Leo’s classroom, they were almost completely out of breath and also the first ones there. They took their seats in the four desk group in the corner of the room, even though there were only two of them.   
As the bell rang, two new people walked in with Mrs Leo. “Goodmorning class, as you all know we were to get two new students.”  
The two new students where one Raphael Winchester and a girl with crazy curly fiery red hair.   
Mrs Leo introduced the class to the new student, “This is Raphael Winchester,” she gestured to him and then to the girl, “and Aragon Vesper. Why don’t you two go sit in the corner with Ashton and Ryan.”  
Raphael lept at the chance to go sit with Ashton and this girl named Ryan.   
“Hi!” Raphael said incredibly enthusiastically, whereas the girl said nothing.  
“Hi, I’m Ryan,” she jetted her hand out to Aragon in an attempt to befriend the red haired girl.  
“Is mise Aragon,” she said so quietly it was barely audible.  
Ashton leaned into Raphael and asked him,” Was that Ritryon?”  
“No,” he responded.  
“Do you speak English?” Ryan asked her and she nodded.

\------

The girl, Aragon, didn't speak for the rest of the day or even the rest of the week. For the next time she spoke it was just as quiet as it had been before on her first day, though this time she did speak in english. Mrs Leo was having the class do some quiet reading when Ashton heard a Scottish accent come from across the table," What is that?"  
"A book smart one," Ashton replied not looking up from the book on his desk.  
"No, what is it about?" She asked again.  
"A veil."  
"A veil of what?"  
"Why should I tell you?" And with that she quickly leaned over the table a took the book from him,"HEY!" Ashton said a little bit too loud for his liking.  
"The Veil of Invisibility? My dad told me all about this, he says only really powerful sorcerers can conjure it or being related to a really powerful sorcerer or sorceress."  
"How do you know about that? Sorcerers and sorceresses I mean."  
"My family has magick," she slid the book back across the table.  
She went back to her own book after that but wasn't focused on it for long. Selene turned around then faced Aragon trying her best to get her attention.  
"Arabella, did you know you have quite messy hair? I know of a few hair products that could help you fix it," Selene said as she tangled her fingers through Aragon's hair.  
"You know what, I'm fine. You can keep your disgusting hair fixins to yourself, I think you might need them more than me and as a side note have you ever heard of a haircut I think you might need one. Desperately," Aragon then turned back around ignoring, or at least trying to, Selene.  
"And for your information, her name is Aragon," Raphael told the bottom feeder named Selene.  
"Tell you what, your all poor excuses for human beings," Selene spat at the quartet.  
This seemed to really get under Aragon's skin as she turned around to yell at Selene just as Ryan tried to speak up, "You know what, there are 1,013,913 words in the English language but I could never string any of them together to accurately describe how much I'd be pleased to make your head become a very close friend to a steel chair right now. Now if you'll be ever so kind as to shut up now that would be beneficial to everyone here, I'm sure the class does not need you to lower their IQ any further then you already have."  
"What she said," Ryan added before everyone at the table turned around and snickered at Selene for sounding so offended.   
Ashton looked down and grinned, he'd wanted to say what Aragon just said to Selene for so long and now someone finally had. Mrs Leo called the class back together and asked the class to divide into groups of four. Immediately Ryan and Ashton grabbed Raphael and Aragon to complete their group, and also to try and get Aragon away from the sea-urchin Selene. Mrs Leo told the class that their assignment was for everyone to find commonalities within their families and with themselves. This was a project they hadn't done since the beginning of the year the objective was was to see if anything had changed over the year. Raphael seemed nervous while Aragon looked confused, Ryan and Ashton just looked at each other and grinned at each other.  
“Shall we start with introductions?" Ryan suggested.  
"My peasants," Raphael started in a really bad posh British accent, "I am Raphael Winchester, your king, though some do more commonly refer to me as 'Punk Rock'. You may all bow down at my feet and show or pledge your loyalties to me as you bask in my glory."  
"Aragon Vesper, please excuse this creature for I am more of royal and Noble blood than he shall ever be," Aragon looked down at Raphael, "He shares more of of a bloodline with a common beast than anyone of importance."  
"Excuse you!"   
"Okay, moving on," Ryan stated, "I'm Ryan Luyddog."  
"Is your name really Ryan?" Aragon asked.  
"No, it Guinevere but I hate that name so people call me Ryan instead."  
"Her family has strange names," Ashton said very quickly, "her older brothers names are Lancelot and Merlin."  
"My family has strange names too," she said, " I've got one older sister named Aquitaine Lacerta most call her Astra, and two younger sisters Aphrodite Vela also known as Aren and Artemis Phoenix. My parents liked the letter a."  
"What are their names?" Ryan asked.  
"Mother was Ariel Isis and father is Archimedes Hyperion."  
"Was?"   
"She died last spring, I'm not allowed to say how."  
Raphael leaned over to Ashton and whispered, "Magick."  
"Maybe," the boy said.  
"Magick?" Ryan had apparently heard and said it out loud successfully capturing the attention of everyone at the table.  
Aragon's eyes went wide with wonder, “You have magick too?”  
Raphael paused their conversation for a second and raised his hand waiting for Mrs Leo to call on him. After a minute or so she did call on him, “Yes Raphael?”  
“Can my group go outside, it’s too loud in here.”  
“As long as you guys are working.”  
The four got up with their work papers and moved outside to continue their conversation so no one could hear them. They moved to the place where everyone put their backpacks and other things, such as instruments like Ashton’s viola. Ashton grabbed his viola case to grab the wand he had housed in it. He pulled an ivory wand with gold inlay from the case to show everyone.  
“What happened to your crystal one?” Raphael asked.  
“My mother, we were watching Chicago and I had it in my back pocket, I had to get up to go to the bathroom so when Velma Kelly started singing ‘All that Jazz’ I left or so I thought I was going to. Mother saw the wand in my back pocket then started yelling at me saying I wasn’t allowed to deal with magick because it was too dangerous, dad was mocking her behind her back,” Ashton answered.  
“Crystal?” Aragon and Ryan asked.  
“Yeah, apparently it's really dangerous,” Ashton said shrugging his shoulders.  
“I didn’t know your family was skilled in sorcery,” Ryan said, “And I’ve known you since we were three!”  
“I’ve known for barely a month, Ry.”  
“Well you could have told me.”  
“So I’m going to guess that three of the four here are from magick families,” Aragon added.   
“Which three?” Raphael asked.  
“Ashton, you, and me.”  
“What about me?” Ryan added.  
“From your comment to Ashton, you seem to be ignorant to magick.”  
“Well, for your information, my mother was a Verness before marrying my father.”  
“So your family practices black magick.”  
“Not to my knowledge, but some family members do.”  
“Who?”  
“My aunt Kalypso and I’ve been told that behind the scenes my aunt Athena did too.”  
“Your mother is Mania? Isn’t she clinically insane?”  
“Only sometimes.”  
“Eheh, sometimes.”


	10. Some Nights

At the end of the day, the quartet met up again to talk about all things magick. Instead of taking the bus they walked down to Ryan's house and ran up to her room so no one would hear them. Ashton pulled out the ivory wand from earlier as the others pulled out wands also. An ivory and gold one for Ashton, an oak with elder runes carved in the handle for Ryan, a simple redwood one for Raphael, and a mahogany wand with a diamond encrusted handle for Aragon. None of them were the same length and obviously not made of the same materials.   
"That wand, is it your mother's?" Aragon asked.  
"I don't know, it was in a box with two others," Ashton responded.  
"Do you have the other two?"  
"No, they're at my house."  
"Can you get them?"  
"I guess so, I'll have to run down the street to my house."  
"Can I go with you?"  
"If you want."  
The two got downstairs without any of Ryan's family stopping them, but that was only the first thing to get past. It wasn't that easy to get a girl with wild curly red hair and a thick Scottish accent to fit into a place where everyone had American accents and dark hair and dark eyes. Poor little Aragon stood out like a sore thumb. To try and avoid questions they ran to Ashton’s house like they were being chased by an angry unseen force, like a poltergeist. His mother must have been home at this time, but his father wasn't so they had to get inside in an interesting manner. The tree branches next to his bedroom window helped with this task immensely. They climbed up the tree and Ashton moved to the branch and jimmyed the window open. He crawled in then helped Aragon through the window. As per usual, Ashton's room was a mess but it was quite easy to find a gold box in the pile of books on his dresser. In one fluid motion he pulled the box from books and handed it to Aragon so she could hide it in her jacket. The other two wands were in there since he managed to swipe the crystal one off his mother very early this morning.  
"Is that it?" Aragon whispered.  
"Yeah, let's go."  
They slipped back out the window, down the tree, then ran back to Ryan's house. They arrived at the Luyddog household out of breath with barely enough wit left to put themselves back together before entering the house. Nobody wanted to have Mrs Luyddog or Lance yell at them for running. They walked back upstairs and when they got to Ryan's room Aragon held up the box in triumph, "We got it."  
"Good, now open the box," Ryan said in a demanding tone of voice.  
Ashton took the box from Aragon and opened the lid to remove the two wands. One of a dark ebony wood with a handle carved to look like coiled rope and a single strand curling up the rest of the wand and one of a selenite crystal simply twisted together to create an effect of depth and dimension. Adding the ivory one to the mix seemed odd for their appearances all looked so different, a hard ivory that looked so soft next to a very hard ebony wood and a selenite crystal, it all looked just plain wrong. Looking at the three in front of him, Ashton could see how it was thought the ivory one belonged to his mother from its delicate appearance which was ironic because his mother was by no means delicate on the other hand the ebony wand had a masculine look almost which was as ironic as the other one because his father did not have a masculine personality by any means. He laughed to himself softly as he tried to figure out the third wand, the crystal one. It had an ugly look about it, almost like someone had put it through a taffy puller.   
"Is that it?" Ryan asked.  
"Yeah, nothing special really," Ashton responded.  
"Nothing special, nothing special?!?!?! The most powerful wand in the world is in your possession and all you can say is nothing special," she sounded almost envious of the fact he had that wand with him.  
"Oh...I...I didn't know," he stammered.  
"Of course you didn't, now give it here," she snatched it from him and delicately handled it as she looked it over.  
"My dad said that that wand was created through dark magick and the Ecclesia de Illuminario," Aragon said also looking at the magical instrument, "But back home that's only a myth, it's never been proven."  
Raphael simply looked at the wand as if he were trying to figure out if he wanted to put it on display or break it into a million places. He reached out to it and slowly ran his pointer finger down the length of it. It was the first time he'd gotten a good look at it in the woods he'd never been closer than three feet to the Bulova boy.   
The quartet sat and talked of magick and spells for hours, when they finally stopped to check the time it was already dark out. The time was a proximity 9:32 at night, thank the Lord it was Friday they thought. Given the time it was, the three that didn’t live their decided to make their way downstairs to leave and go home but that wasn't exactly what happened. In the kitchen sat Sebastianna and Jacobitte Bulova, Archimedes Vesper, Evan Winchester, and Mania Luyddog with her husband Samuel. They all had cups of tea, Mania Luyddog always served tea to her guests, and chatted nonchalantly about different topics. She'd probably called them all to tell them that their children were over at the Luyddog residence, it was weird how she knew things like that, even though they had never stepped out of Ryan's room- unless you count going to get the other two wands from Ashton’s house. No one had looked in the direction of the four children yet so they were preparing their, 'I'm sorry I didn't tell you I was going to so and so's house, I didn't mean to stay over there to late and please don't ground me' speeches. Eventually one Archimedes Vesper looked over to them and say the wild red curly hair of his second daughter. He didn't seem at all angered at the fact she was out so late but he could have just been masking his emotions. The rest of the group turned their heads to see where Archimedes was looking and their faces painted a rainbow of emotions, from anger to relief, joy to confusion. Evan Winchester was the first to stand to go to his child. Raphael looked at his father before saying," I need to go get my bag and wand from upstairs," he then quickly turned his heel to go upstairs.   
Ashton was internally freaking out but trying his best to not show it, but Ryan seemed to sense it. She stood right behind him and gave his hand a reassuring squeeze that the adults couldn’t see. Her calm nature seemed to almost transfer to him through that simple action and he felt almost relieved that she was there. It was always Ryan that made him calm down or laugh in times like this but both were too scared to say a word. Ryan gently nudged her brother, not by blood but by choice, forward to the group of parents. With a sharp intake of air he put on a brave face and stepped a little closer next to Aragon, who stood in front of her father. He could now see him in her, they had the same eyes and curly hair but his was kept short so the curls looked a bit more maintained and a darker colour than hers. He silently acknowledged his parents presence almost terrified of what they would say to him. What they did surprised him, they got up and hugged him and his mother said something along the lines of, “Thank god you’re not hurt.” Ashton looked at her, confused as to why she’d say something like that to him.   
“Thank you, Mae,” she said to Mrs Luyddog before turning to her only son. “Is there anything you need to get from upstairs?”  
“Y-yes Mama,” Ashton’s voice was shaky still from the fear he was harboring down inside himself for her at this moment.   
“Go get whatever you have,” his father told him.  
Ashton turned on his heel and went upstairs followed by one curious Ryan.   
“You don’t have to follow me everywhere, Guinevere,” he told her without looking back.  
“I gotta keep an eye out for my little bro don’t I?” She said in a teasing tone.  
“Being two months and five days doesn’t make you older than me when your maturity level is lower than mine.”  
“I can bare witness to the fact your maturity level is lower than mine.”  
“Wheres the nearest object I can hurrell at your skull?”  
“Not on these stairs, unless you try ripping up the floorboards.”  
Ashton rolled his eyes and made his way up stairs making his way to Ryan’s room. The door was still ajar when he got to her room everything was still the disaster it was when they left so he knew neither Lance or Merlin had been in her room. All his belongings were still in a pile and the box of wands on the bed, he threw his books and such in his backpack but left out the golden box. He slung his bag over his shoulder, grabbed his viola case in his left hand and gold box in his right. Making his way downstairs he saw Ryan standing at the bottom of the stairs giving him suggestive looks but he just rolled his eyes at her, he was just so done with her at this point. Jacobitte and Sebastianna Bulova stood at the door waiting for him and saying their goodbyes to everyone. Ashton stood in front of them and told them he was ready to leave after saying his goodbyes to Raphael, Aragon, and Ryan and thanking Mrs Luyddog for putting up with him like she’d done all these years.   
The family made their way down the street to their home without speaking a word. They only spoke once they got in the house. “Sooooooo…,” Mrs Bulova stretched out the simple word a bit too much.  
Jacobitte walked to the kitchen to retrieve three boxes for them. The boxes were from a deli and pizzeria in town, one a friend of Ashton’s parents owned. He handed Ashton the box on the bottom and then one to his wife.   
“I thought you’d be hungry also,” he said.  
“Did you say hi to Mia for me?” Ashton asked.  
“She wasn’t there, but her dad was so we told him to tell her hi from you,” Mrs Bulova said as she opened her salad.  
“Ok, aren’t you mad at me?” Ashton asked still unwilling to open his usual pineapple pepperoni calzone.  
“I would run off to my friends homes all the time when my parents wouldn’t tell me what was going on when I was younger,” Sebastianna said with Caesar salad still in her mouth. “There was this one time where I ran off to my friend Clio’s house after I heard about a battle happening nearby to my families home. Mother was back home healing the injured and father wasn’t home, Mother said he’d never come home. I was ten years old at the time and I could only find comfort in my closest friend. It took my mother years to explain to me what had really happened to Father, so I understand that you went to your friends with questions.”  
“Did you do things like that?" Ashton asked his dad.  
"No, I just asked so many times it got annoying and your grandparents gave in just to get me to shut up."  
Ashton forgot about his parents being angry as they told him different stories of magick and mythical creatures like dragons and Mermaids. His mother said that one time in the lake near Blackthorn Hall a friend of hers older brother took a small boat out into the water to find some of the Mermaids but instead came across a sea siren and the siren manipulated him into drowning in the lake, and he did. She also said that in the library archives of Blackthorn Hall there was a book with every recorded death that occurred in the lake but the list was so long that it became an entire shelf of books on the topic. It was getting to around eleven thirty when his parents finally sent him upstairs to bed. His dreams were filled with images of dragons and mermaids, phoenix and werewolves. 

\---------

He woke around noon the next day but but got out of bed about two thirty after hearing a hustle and bustle going on downstairs. People were moving fast, their footsteps echoed on the old hard wood flooring. By the sounds of it, his parents weren’t alone. Throwing his covers aside, Ashton left his room and quietly padded down the stairs. He heard voices coming from the front sitting room, most of them sounded like his mother speaking very fast Italian, or another Latin based language. Most of it was too quick for him to decipher which language she was speaking in but he knew it was one he'd heard before. When he reached the sitting room his mother was pacing back and forth with her hands in her hair, the skirt of her long dress was getting tangled around her ankles, she was clearly stressed. Jacobitte Bulova stood in the corner of the room dressed in a casual suit and eyes locked on a very distressed person, woman, on the sofa.   
A woman had dark auburn red hair there was something about her that Ashton seemed to recognize but he couldn’t pinpoint what. Maybe an old photograph or someone he’d met long ago but he just didn’t seem to know where he’d seen them before. She dressed like was to be going somewhere of importance, the woman’s dress looked mighty expensive.  
Ashton stood there for a while, hidden in the shadows, listening to what was being said. There were some phrases he knew like, ‘How can you be sure?’ and ‘Then prove it.’ After twenty or so minutes of listening to the back and forth conversation he figured out that the adults in the room were speaking Italian but he didn’t know enough to know what exactly they were saying. It wasn’t until they switched back to English that anything was understandable for the boy.  
“And her name?” His mother asked them after she stopped pacing.  
“Anastasya,” the woman said. “But most call her ‘Dracara’.”  
“The nature of her injury? What caused it?”  
“We do not know, no one has told us anything all they have told us is to prepare for the worst,” the woman said.  
“Have you taken her to Florence yet?”   
“Yes, they said there that you were the best, but no one could find you,” the woman spoke again. “We tracked down where you were last seen, if thats ok with you.”  
“Mind you, I’ve been a Relici healer for almost twelve years I might be a little rusty,” Mrs Bulova   
"You're our last hope," the woman had tears in her eyes. "I don't want to loose my little Annie."  
"I must gather my things, but I will meet you there in say....twenty minutes?"  
"That will be fine," the two got up and shook hands with the Bulovas then stepped outside.  
"Where are those trunks Ashton found?" Sebastianna asked her husband.  
"In the back of the crawlspace, near the gate door."   
“Right,” she stepped through the doorway noticing Ashton first off.  
“Sorry, I couldn’t help but listen in a bit,” he shrugged as he stated a fact.  
“How much did you hear?”  
“Some Italian that I didn’t understand and then some English about helping a girl named Anastasya.”  
“Okay then, I guess you can help me with something I need to get.”  
“Does it involve that trunk I found?”  
“Another one, but yes.”  
“Okay then,” Ashton led his mother to the crawlspace and to the pile of trunks.  
“If I remember correctly, the trunk that I put my healer equipment and books in was old beat up and I think it was a dark green,” she seemed to be going over things in her mind to see if she was correct.  
“I think I’ve seen one like that but it wasn’t here.”  
“Then where was it?”  
“Blackthorn Hall.”  
"Lead the way."  
First they had to find a few books such as herbs, magick healing, and healing potions. The books were in a trunk much like the one that she had decried but the colour was wrong, in reality it was a dark blue instead. He grabbed the book on herbs, as his mother got the other two, then led her to the door conjoining the two properties. There was a trunk at the end of the hallway upstairs, just below the window, as he led his mother upstairs the eerie silence got to him. There was a million questions running through his mind again, maybe if he asked just one or two of them he might get a proper answer out of her.  
“Why did we leave, this place I mean?” Ashton asked, looking over his shoulder to look at Sebastianna.  
“It was...dangerous...you were too young to know the horrors of our world. The only purity, the only one who was truly innocent was you, we had to protect you,” her voice was shaky and uneven, like she was about to start crying.  
“What kind of horrors?”  
“The Ecclesia de Illuminatio, they and their followers wanted everyone to go back to how things used to be. They started a war, some two hundred years back but it's only gotten really bad within the last fifty or seventy-five."  
"Oh, is that why you never told me?"  
"Your father thought it would be a bad idea but when the war hit home for him he changed his mind."  
"What do you mean 'hit home'?"  
"Some Ecclesia followers, they call themselves 'Custos de Divius', some of them went after a group of sorcerers and sorceresses hidden in his hometown back in Scotland and demolished everything that stood between them and the ones who were fighting for the good. There were only fourteen survivors of Kinlochbervie, three escaped without a scratch the others went mad and in the coming months they either died or went into hiding, and nobody has seen them since."  
"Is that why he said we could never go visit there?"  
"Yes, and the last time I saw it with my very eyes only one thing was left standing."  
"May I ask what it was?"  
"A church."

They came upon the old trunk at the end of the hall, the woman let out a sigh of relief; the trunk looked to be intact but in times like these, nothing was as it seemed. She open the trunk carefully and let out another sigh of relief when she saw that nothing had been touched in eleven years since she closed it up.   
"Were we hereafter I was born?" Ashton saw the way she looked in the trunk, with budding tears in her eyes.  
"Yes."  
"How long?"  
"Fourteen months."  
"Is that when you closed this up?"  
"Yes."  
"That's when you went to medical school, Relici medical school?"  
"Yeah, we had a family friend look after you during the day while I was at school and your dad was out training with the CIA University to become a spy. It helped that he was already trained to go after the bad sorcerers from a young age."  
"So that's what dad works as, a spy?"  
"Yes, yes it is. Now there's a bag in here that we might be able to gather what I need from in here."

They pulled out book after book and robe after robe, finally in the very bottom they found a well worn bag. Between all the books and the extra robe, Sebastianna put on the green robe, the bag should have been bursting at the seams if it weren't for the charm she had placed on it. She closed the trunk back up then told Ashton to meet her back at the gate door there was something she had to see before leaving. Walking down the staircase he heard a large heavy door open and scrape along the floor then someone walk in. He wondered what it was she had to see and contemplated going to find her though he decided it was wrong of himself to investigate affairs that didn't involve himself. Minutes later the door closed again and his mother walked down the steps.  
"Time to get you home," she told him.  
"Why can't I go with you?"  
"It's dangerous, that's why."  
"If you don't teach me of the dangers of this world, I'll never learn right from wrong."  
"Are you trying to manipulate me?"  
"Is it working?"  
"God, you're too much like your father sometimes, you know that?"  
"Well, I do now."  
"I might as well, but you'll have to hold on tight," she extended her left hand for him and he quickly took it.  
"Why?"  
"You'll see," she reached into a pocket of the green robe and pulled out small a red velvet bundle bound with gold cord. "Florence, Italy," with those words their surroundings changed almost instantly.   
Ashton felt his stomach drop to his feet and his whole body stiffen. Wind rushed past his ears as sounds of trains and cars passed by. There was a feeling that his body was imploding upon itself and he couldn't do a thing about it. When his feet finally touched the ground again he knew that this place was most definitely not the Blackthorn Hall they'd been in only moments ago. The place they landed was loud yet quiet at the same time, it was dark out and very few people were walking the streets.  
"What was that?" Ashton didn't know what to think.  
"A hex bag, a transporting one," unlike him, Sebastianna was able to stand on her own two feet without nearly falling over.  
"What time is it?" Ashton asked very confused as to why it was so dark out.  
"About midnight."  
"Wow."

They walked through the streets quietly before coming across a dead end alley. The wall in front of him seemed to ripple when he poked it, almost like when you skipped a stone across water. His mother laughed at him before grabbing his hands and pulling him through the wall. Inside was a very modern hospital with things floating, people speaking in many different languages and others using those hex bag things to zap in and out of the place.  
"Excuse me, Seb," a dark haired woman with a Russian accent pushed past her. "Wait, Sebastianna?!?"  
"Yes, Yulia, it's me," Mrs Bulova said with a smile on her face.  
"Oh, its been so long," Yulia hugged her like the woman was a long lost family member who'd just been found again.  
"Yes I know."  
The woman, Yulia, pulled away and looked at Ashton, "You must be Ashton."  
"Yes, ma'am," Ashton bowed his head like someone who had just tipped their hat off to someone.  
"Polite little man you’ve become, you were only a year old ze last time I say you.”  
“Mom and Dad never mentioned you.”  
"Oh well zat is not important right now, what is important is why you are here?"  
"The Venedecci girl, Anastasya," Mrs Bulova added in. "Now, Yulia, we really must go figure out what's happened to her."  
"Oh, yes, she was this way," Yulia pointed back behind her down the hallway. "But you will have to check in first."  
"I'll catch up with you later,come on Ashton," she led her son over to where her memory told her the check in desk was.

The desk of people seemed amazed to see her. They looked at her with amazement, almost like she held an almost godly presence. After an seemingly endless amount of time the two were led back to a room at the end of the hallway that Yulia had pointed to earlier. Ashton was forced to wait outside. He saw some of the empty rooms and noticed that the beds and equitment didn’t touch the ground, it simply just floated there. It was really a slap in the face to Ashton, it was like he now truly knew this world wasn’t a figment of his imagination. Beds that looked to be a piece of something, maybe a sheet of metal, with a mattress and blankets lying on top hovering three or four feet off the ground and equipment on metal trays that floated four or so feet off the ground.  
People, who Ashton assumed to be sorcery equivalents to doctors and nurses, ran in and out of the room with liquids of strange colours in little test tubes. He heard people yelling things like, ‘We’re losing her’ and ‘She’s got an incredibly high fever, 106.3’  
He heard his mother yell, “We’ve got a bp of 40/60 and a dropping heart rate, I need a stabilizing tonic, NOW!”   
A girl, around nineteen or so by the looks of it, ran out of the room in a hurry to a room across the hall. People started yelling at her in the room, she yelled back at them, ‘Sorry for trying to save the life of the youngest Grand Duchess.’ Grand Duchess? His mother was helping royalty, or at least nobility? Then he remembered what Raphael had said in combination with what his mother had said, the Venedecci girl- the Venedecci’s were the ruling sorcery family. While Ashton was thinking he nearly missed the girl run back out into the room with the Venedecci girl {Anastasya?}. Ashton stood at the door and tried his best to see what was going on, but one of the men in the doorway pushed him back and closed the door in his face then shut the green curtains of the window. He knew that he wasn’t going to be able to go in that room and figure out what was going on so he walked back to the waiting room that him and his mother had passed on their way in. In the room only one person resided in there; the woman with dark auburn hair sat waiting almost shaking with fear.   
“You’re the Bulova boy,” he looked at Ashton with wide eyes.  
“Yes, and you are?”  
“I’m Athena,” the woman spoke kindly though he voice was shaking. “Your mother is here isn’t she? Have heard anything about my Anastasya?”  
“Please, we’re begging you,” the woman clung to a hankerchief with tears streaming down her face.  
“I’ve only heard slight things, things that wouldn’t make sense unless you know what has happened to her,” Ashton thought back to the crime shows he loved to watch. From what was going on in front of him everything reminded him of those confrontations with loved ones right before they were told one of their own didn’t make it.  
“Would you please just tell us?” Athena was nearly at the point of collapsing she was shaking so much.  
“I’m going to need a pen and paper to write down everything then I will be back,” Ashton left quickly to find for a pen and pad of paper. He knew that this was a bad idea and went against everything he’d ever been taught but he felt the need to help this Anastasya girl, whom he’d never met. Within five minutes he discovered a box containing pads of paper and a cup of pens on the check in desk. With a pen and paper in hand, he returned to the Venedecci’s in the waiting room. “Mrs Venedecci I’m going to need you to sit down,” he asked them trying to channel any of the detectives in interrogation on a cop show he’d seen or those in real life.  
“Can you tell me what they’ve said? Please,” the woman looked at him with pleading eyes as he sat across from her.  
“She has a bp of around 40/60 with a dropping heart rate and a high fever, 106.3 to be exact. Now has there been anything recently that could cause something like this to occur? “  
“I’m sorry, but whats ‘bp’?”  
“Blood pressure, sir.”  
“What?” They both seemed way out of their league here now.  
“Uhm...blood pressure, the pressure of blood against the inner walls of the blood vessels.”  
“Is the 40/60 good?” Athena asked Ashton...like Ashton knew what he was talking about. He was just thankful he had tried to read his mother's med school books and vaguely knew what he was talking about.  
“No, an ideal bp would be around 120/80 give or take.”  
“Will this have a long term effect on her?” Athena asked.  
“I don’t know, but what I need to know is if there was anything within the last few days that could have caused her body to react in this sort of way. Please anything will help.”  
“Well there was one thing that happened maybe a week back.”  
“And what would that be, Ma’am?”  
“Anastasya and Alexi, her younger brother, went with our two eldest, Hera, and Maria, to see the dragons. We had just gotten a baby and adolescent pair of Sanguis Draconis only three days prior, the baby Saguis was a little violent thing it attacked another dragon of ours a young Indominus, but the Indominus didn’t make it and the baby Sanguis had died because of injuries it had sustained that morning. Anastasya wanted to give the two dragons proper burials and Alexi thought it would be neat to see the living Sanguis, no one has see a Sanguis Draconis in the wild since before the war began. Hera said that little Anastasya buried the Indominus first then moved on to burry the Sanguis while Maria and Alexi fed the other dragons, but everyone turned out to be wrong. The Sanguis was still in the process of dying, for some dragons it takes a long time for them to finally pass on, but there was still enough life left in it when she started to move it the dragon’s head popped up according to Hera and it ran its teeth down Anastasya’s arm.”  
“What do you mean by ‘ran its teeth down Anastasya’s arm’?” Ashton asked as he wrote down everything but looking up for only a second to ask Mrs Venedecci.  
“Young dragons have this way of getting food from their mothers by running their teeth down their mother’s scales to show how sharp they’ve gotten in return the mother gives it food. With Sanguis Draconis, their teeth are immensely sharp even after just hatching.”  
“So while the dragon did this, are you saying that basicly the dragon cut open her arm?”  
“Yes...Sanguis Draconis got their names from that, they would cut open their victims and transfer some of their blood to the victim to try and kill it...a dragon tried to kill my daughter..A DRAGON TRIED TO KILL MY ANASTASYA?!?!” It seemed like Mrs Venedecci had just realized what had exactly happened to her youngest daughter.  
“Ma’ma I’m going to need you to calm down,” Ashton wrote down what little bit of Mrs Venedecci’s story was left. “Now I’m just going to need a few more basic bits of information.”  
“Like?” She wrapped her arms around her torso in an almost protective manner.  
“Full name?”  
“Surely you’d know that one.”  
“Sorry, standard procedure.”  
“Grand Duchess Anastasya Mercurivena Venedecci.”  
“Age?”  
“13, as of February 13.”  
“Was anyone else present besides Hera, Maria, and Alexi?”  
“All of our dragon caretakers were off tending to other new dragons that day, so they would have been at the port which was too far for them to have seen anything. Will that be all?”  
“Yes,” Ashton wrote down what was added and headed back off to the room where Anastasya was.  
Everything was still chaotic and people didn’t know what exactly what had happened to her. Ashton tried his best to get someone's attention and to help the poor girl who was only a few months older than himself but no one would listen to him.  
“HEY!” He yelled and finally managed to get someone's attention, more accurately everyone's attention. “Is anyone going to listen me for a second. I know what’s wrong.”  
“Who let this child in here?” An older gentleman in the back of the room asked.  
“Sorry he’s my son,” Sebastianna said very stressfully. “Ashton what are you talking about?”  
“I went and talked to Mrs Venedecci and-,” he was cut off by people he didn’t even know.  
“You just went up and talked to her?!?! She is royalty, people of our class don’t just go up and talk to them?!?!?!” A Woman said as three others agreed with her.  
“Well I did, is that a crime? Anyway, unlike all of you I have the full story and know whats wrong with her.”  
“Well then, boy, spit it out!” Someone else said.  
“The blood of a Sanguis Draconis, has anyone tested for that?”

Everyone looked at him like he had just put every government secret on the internet. By the looks of it they didn’t like the idea of being outsmarted by a thirteen year old with barely any medical knowledge much less magical medical knowledge. Within a second everyone went into overdrive mode and began testing for Sanguis Draconis blood present in her bloodstream. In a matter of minutes someone pulled out an old leather bound book with the words ‘Dragon Potions’ written on the cover in gold lettering and found one to reverse the effects of Sanguis Draconis blood. When ready, the potion was a light glowing blue colour like anti-freeze. Anastasya lay unconscious on the bed so it was unlikely that she would remember someone pulling open her jaw and pouring the blue liquid down her throat. Almost instantly the potion took action in her system, her blood pressure went to a normal number and her heart rate stabilized and was brought up to 68 beats per minute but her fever seemed to be a little on the high side still, it had only dropped to a 105.1 F. People began panicking again because they didn’t know how exactly they could lower her core temperature, and once again Ashton felt like he was doing their job for them.  
“Ice, you need ice,” Ashton said loud enough for everyone to hear but not loud enough to be classified as yelling.  
“And what would we do with the ice, Mr I-know-what-I’m-doing?” The older man said to him once again.  
“You’d take bags of ice and pack them around her body to lower her core temperature.”  
“It’s the best idea yet so it's worth a shot,” a woman said as she rushed out of the room to clean off her hands.

Mrs Bulova stood over Anastasya and whispered a spell to conjure up bags of ice. The ice didn’t seem to be in bags but before hand one of the nurses had placed a slight blanket barrier around her so theoretically she should have been unaffected by the ice. Very slowly her temperature lowered down to a reasonable 100 F and everyone began removing the ice. Sebastianna left to get a fever reducing tonic that would help get her temperature back to a normal 98.6 F and came back moments later. After Anastasya had been given the tonic Mrs Bulova led her son outside and to the Venedecci woman in the waiting area.  
“Has anything gone wrong? What's happened? Is she alright?” Mrs Venedecci asked frantically.  
“Everything is going to be just fine. As it seems, a thirteen year old boy just outsmarted an entire room of trained professionals and saved her life,” Mrs Bulova told them.  
“Can we go see her?” She asked.  
“She’s still asleep and we will have to monitor her for forty-eight hours to make sure she doesn’t react to any of the potions we gave her, but after that yes you can see your daughter.”  
“Oh thank you,” Mrs Venedecci said.  
“Don’t thank me, thank Ashton. If it weren’t for him, Anastasya would still be suffering and we wouldn’t have had the slightest clue how to help her.”  
“Well then thank you Ashton Bulova.”  
“Might I ask you something?”  
“What exactly did he do?”  
“He came into the waiting room and we asked him if he’d heard anything and he told us what he’d heard and then he asked us what had happened so we told him.”  
“So he can be helpful at time,” Sebastianna said to her son.  
“Thank you very much for saving Anastasya,” Mrs Venedecci said.   
“Now I suggest you two get home and get some sleep, it's nearing three thirty am and you two look dead on your feet,” Mrs Bulova told the frantic woman. “ We’ll take care of her, nothing will happen to your daughter here.”  
“Okay,” Athena Venedecci took out a purple hex bag from his pocket and did just as Ashton’s mother had earlier, in seconds they were gone.  
“Did this happen often, mother? When you healed the magick community.”  
“Some nights we’d get a strange case or two but never any with Sanguis dragons,” she threw her arm around her son and walked him back down the hall.


	11. Oh Death

The girl, Anastasya, woke that morning at precisely 9:03 am the next morning. The whole hospital let out a sigh of relief when she finally opened her eyes, looked around, and asked, "Is there anything to eat? I'm starving," to which everyone laughed and the cooks in the kitchen whipped something light together for her. Aside from that one comment she sat silently until Sebastianna Bulova came in around noon. The two spoke for a while as Sebastianna checked her over to make sure nothing had gone askew in the night. Eventually Anastasya asked about how they managed to save her and why everything felt so cold. The comments of being chilled struck a chord with everyone as panic set in again. The doctors and nurses tried giving her tonic after tonic and warming charm after warming charm, but nothing was working.   
As the people diligently worked, the young girl’s memory began to piece together what exactly had happened the night before.   
A woman, dressed in a ivory chiffon long 1920’s dress with no shoes, stretched out her hand and tried to pull her away from this world.   
A symbol engraved in a pendant that hung from her neck, a circle with a triangle in it and then triangle within the first.  
Then a boy yelling at people telling them they weren’t treating her for the correct illness.

She set aside her food and stated, “I wish to speak to the boy.” She crossed her arms across her chest and held her head high.  
“What boy, Grand Duchess?” One of the nurses in the room asked.  
“The one who saved me.”

\---------

Ashton walked in the room, confused why he was needed here. Anastasya looked at him with wonder and curiosity in her eyes.   
"Come, sit down," Anastasya patted the side of the bed to try and get Ashton to come closer, reluctantly Ashton did go sit beside her.  
"You wanted to see me?" Ashton asked.  
"You were the one to save me, is that correct?"  
"Well I just told them that they were treating the wrong thing."  
"How did you know?"  
“Call it an out of body experience if you may.”  
“Those things really happen?”  
“Apparently.”  
“Oh, I forgot to introduce myself, I’m Ashton...Ashton Bulova.”  
“Dracara Venedecci,” she extended her hand to him.  
Ashton shook her hand and asked, “ I thought your name was Anastasya?”  
“It is, but ‘Dracara’ means fiery in old Ritreyon.”  
“I’ve heard that before, what exactly is Ritreyon?”  
“It’s the old language of Sorcerers.”  
“Is it ok if I ask you another question?”  
“You just did, but I’ll allow you another.”  
“What did you see in your ‘out of body experience’?”  
“I saw people rushing around my with different potions and tonics in hand then you came in and spoke about the Sanguis Draconis. Everyone thinking it was worth a shot, you proved them wrong, they managed to get most of my vitals back to normal except my fever. You suggested they pack ice around my body to lower my core temperature. That’s the last thing I saw from the room.”  
“From the way your speaking of it, that wasn’t the only thing you saw. What else did you see?”  
“I closed my eyes and I was in the woods. It was overcast outside and leaves were falling of the trees. There was a woman in a ivory chiffon 1920’s long dress with no shoes just walking around. She looked odd.”  
“How so?”  
“Ghastly pale skin, long black hair, and strangely bi-colour eyes- one was coal black and the other was almost colourless.”  
“Anything else?”  
“She had a pendant on. On it hung a stone, onyx maybe, it had a symbol engraved into it.”  
“What did the symbol look like?”  
“A circle with a triangle in it, large enough for the corners to touch the circle, and another triangle within the first only upside down.”  
“Like this?” Ashton grabbed a pen and paper from the nearest table and drew the symbol he’d seen on the girl’s arm in the forest.  
“Yeah, thats it.”  
“I’ll be back,” Ashton ran out of the room to look for to his mother, maybe she knew what this was. 

Sebastianna Bulova was at the front desk speaking to Yulia. They seemed to be too deep in conversation to notice Ashton at first, but after a minute or two Yulia saw him. Even after Yulia saw him, the two women still continued to speak as if Ashton didn't even exist. Rude. Ashton put the paper on the desk and cleared his throat, much to his luck they didn't respond still.  
"Uhm...Hello? Are you deaf?" Ashton asked them, slightly annoyed.  
"Oh hello there, little one," Sebastianna said to her son.  
"Have you seen this before?" Ashton pushed the paper to her.  
She studied it for a second before her eyes went wide. She mumbled something in a different language, probably Romanian like she spoke with her mother, that sounded like she was cursing at it, "We will speak of this at home."  
"Oh," he left, with paper in hand, and returned to Dracara.  
Dracara had fallen asleep in his absence so he returned to his mother reluctantly. 

\-----------

In a darkened woods with overcast skies, a woman was lurking in the trees. An old beaten path led down the hillside and leaves were falling, though it wasn’t even fall. Every living thing around the being reacted to it in an awful way. Trees and plants shriveled up and died when her foot touched the ground.   
She was ghastly pale, almost translucent. Hair coal black and matted lay cascading down her back to touch her waist line. Eyes so unnatural it was unbearable to look her directly in the eye- one as dark as midnight, the other so colourless it only looked to be a pool of white with a black colour in the center. It seemed as if her eyes bore into one poor soul, they would devour it and leave behind nightmares and terrors of the past. With just one look, she could take complete control of anyone who crossed her path that was how she drew in her victims.   
The woman looked to have just stepped from a time machine from the 1920’s. Her dress was long and tattered, ivory in colour and made of chiffon fabric. She wore no shoes, putting her mangled disgusting feet on display for everyone to bare witness to.   
A cold breeze followed her, so cold everything froze.

She chose when someone left this world, and if they’d be allowed to join the next.

\-------

Ashton opened his eyes and shot up in bed heavily breathing. He looked around, he couldn’t remember getting here at all. It was dark in his room and the alarm clock in his room read, with bright green lights, 3:20 am. Terrors rattled around in his mind left him feeling incredibly uneasy. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't get back to sleep. Finally at 4:50 in the morning he said 'to hell with it' before going downstairs. There was one light on, a dim one, in the kitchen downstairs and everything was silent. Mr Bulova sat at the kitchen table in a suit and tie with a cup of tea in his hand reading over a file folder sitting in front of him. There was a suitcase and dufflebag just behind him and a small box sitting on the floor at his feet. He looked up when he saw his son step into the kitchen, "Hey there, Ash."  
"You're leaving again, aren't you?" Ashton went and sat across from his father.  
"Yes, there's something you have that I need though."  
"What is it?"  
"If I remember correctly it's a black wand."  
"Would you like me to go get it now?"  
"Would you please?"  
Ashton quietly walked upstairs to find the wand box. It lay hidden in his book shelf between Frankenstein and Dracula. He removed the copy of Frankenstein in order to get to it as it was very tightly packed in the shelf. All three wands were in the box, including a few notes he'd taken from the spell and potions books. He picked up the black one, put both the book and box back in the shelf, and walked downstairs.  
"Fiat lux," Ashton cast as he walked down the stairs. A small light was emitted from the tip of the wand, just enough for him to see where he was going. When he stepped into the kitchen a second mug of tea sat on the table ,"Mora," and the light flickered out.  
"Ah, so I see you've been reading up a bit," Mr Bulova told his son.  
"Just a bit, here you go," Ashton passed over the wand and his father put it in a special pocket on the inside of his suit jacket. "Can you tell me what your mission is?"  
"That's classified, Ashton, you know I can't tell you."  
"Then unclassify it, and why do you need your wand?"  
"I can't 'unclassify' it and my wand can be a far more superior tracking device than any of their tracking tech."  
Ashton slumped down in the seat across from his father and took a gulp of his tea. He looked at the open file in front of his father that was written in some foreign language, most likely Russian give the way the characters looked, there was a picture in the corner- a picture he recognized but no one would tell me what it was. "What is that?" He pointed at the symbol that he now felt like he'd seem everyday for his entire life.  
"Top...secret."  
"No fair."  
"Sorry, Bug, its something very dangerous and very powerful. It should never be messed with."  
It had been years since his father had called him 'Bug'. The nickname that payed homage to his obsession when he was a mere two years old made him cringe, he never had liked that name. "Fiiiiiinnnnnneeeeee......... Just don't get yourself killed, okay?"  
"Don't plan on it," he got up and placed a kiss on top of Ashton's head. "Now while I'm gone you're gonna be the man of the house, is that okay?"  
"Yeah."  
Jacobitte closed his folder and threw it in his duffel bag along with the box that had been at his feet. He threw the duffel on his shoulder and took the suitcase by its handle before waving Ashton goodbye. "See you in two weeks."  
So he'd be back after school let out, okay. "Make sure you have your phone on," Ashton told his father.   
"I will, except for the plane trips."  
"How long will that be?"  
"Twenty-six goddamn hours."  
"Thailand or Singapore?"  
"Thailand."  
"Bring back pictures."  
"Always."  
"Bye, dad."  
"Later, Bug," Jacobitte closed and locked the door behind him leaving Ashton to be the only one awake in the house, or so he thought.  
"I've always hated seeing him leave," Ashton jumped at the sound of his mother's voice. "Atleast you've woken up so I won't have to be alone anymore."  
"How did I get here? How long was I out for? What day is it?" Ashton asked.  
"I brought you back from Florence on Sunday evening, today is Wednesday, and you were asleep for about two days and three nights I'd say."  
"How? What? Why?"  
"I don't know why you were out so long but I do know what caused it."  
"What then?"  
"Your magick was going erratic and was causing you to hallucinate."  
"Did I hurt anyone?"  
"Only parts of your room, but those were quickly fixed and charmed so no further damage would come to them."  
"Is there anyway I can control my magick?"  
"I can teach you what you need to know until next school year but first you'll need your own wand."  
"What's next school year?"  
"When you went over to Ryan's house with Miss Vesper and Mr Winchester-."  
"Aragon and Raphael."  
"Right, when you went over to Ryan's house with Aragon and Raphael after Mrs Luyddog called all of us adults we began talking. You see, you children are all in the same boat, we decided it would be best to send you to a place called 'Miss Caramel's School for the Gifted' where you can learn and control your magick with other young sorcerers and sorceresses your age."  
"Aren't sorcerers and sorceresses the same as witches and wizards?"  
"Yes, but that is a very derogatory and frowned upon name that you must never call anyone."  
"Are all of us going there? I mean Ryan, Aragon, Raphael, and I."  
"Yes, in August we will take the four of you to tour the school and then you will go back September 8, the day classes begin."  
"Did you go there to learn magick?"  
"No, your father and I went to a place called 'The Ambrosia Academy' ."  
"Why can't I go there?"  
"Because it no longer exists, the Ecclesia de Illuminatio destroyed it."

\--------------

Ashton went and got the trunks of books from the crawlspace after his mother had told him that they were her and his father's old academy textbooks and assignments. There were three trunks of books in total that Sebastianna told Ashton about and surprisingly they weren't that heavy. She told him that his father had charmed them long ago to feel weightless but over time the spells power was dwindling so it was possible to feel some of the weight inside. There was another trunk that Sebastianna took that held the more powerful items, things she use to use on the dayly to create her potions and tonics for the hospital. They pulled the four trunks into the back living room and opened them up. Sebastianna pulled out her books from her first year at Ambrosia while Ashton went and got the three books and two wands stowed away in his bedroom. Once downstairs, Sebastianna led her son to to gate door that joined together this place and her ancestral home in the Italian alps, Blackthorn Hall.  
"Why do we need to go to Blackthorn hall?" Ashton had no idea what his mother was planning.  
"You need a wand of your own, don't you?" She asked him.  
"Yes, but can't we get one here? There's bound to be maybe one person here that sells them."  
"And the Ecclesia would hunt them down for it."  
"Ok what is this 'Ecclesia de Illuminatio' I've heard it mentioned now countless times and in the library of Blackthorn Hall there's a book on it, but what the hell is it?"  
"A ruthless organization of insane sorcerers and sorceresses that want full control of our world, they want to revert it back to what it once was. Hasn't me or someone else told you this already?" Sebastianna opened the door and more or less straddle the line while explaining to her son what the group that caused so much pain was.  
"I don't think so."  
"Come now," she offered up her hand to him to help him thru. "I always used to hate that everything was so dark here, but given how much of it if possibly hundreds of years old it would be a crime to destroy or change anything."  
Sebastianna led him through countless corridors pointing out useless things. Everything looked the same to Ashton, everything looked black and abused, like a fire had occurred in their absence. They came upon another gate door down in the cellar but this one was a lot simpler. She explained to her son that the Bulovas had been making fine high quality wands since the days of the Roman Republic, not the empire she clarified the republic. That little bit of information gave Ashton a slightly new look on the wands at home. Where they made by the Bulova family? She led Ashton into a quaint little shop that lived just beyond the door.  
"Was that another gate door?" Ashton asked.  
"Yes, yes it was."  
"Where is this place?"  
"Hunedoara, Romania on the outskirts."  
"Can everyone see it?"  
"At one time only the magically inclined, but since it's been boarded up no one can see it."  
Ashton wondered off to look at the shelves. There were boxes in rich colours that neatly lined the walls and were safely protected behind glass. The shelves seemed to go on forever, in the back of the store there was a clerks desk and a large glass cabinet with gold designs painted around the edges. Inside the cabinet was six shelves of dark blue boxes packed full, on the fourth shelf sat a thin piece of wood and either a chunk of glass or a crystal looking rather peculiar among the beautifully coloured boxes.   
Mrs Bulova stepped behind the counter and gestured her son to go to her. She opened the cabinet and took out the wood and glass crystal then set it on the counter.  
"Ashton, I know this sounds weird but, I'm going to need you to cut the pad below your thumb on your dominant hand," she asked him.  
"Ookkkkkay," he did as he was asked and when the crystal broke the skin on his hand he let out a low hissing noise.  
"Now I'm going to need you to set the crystal down on the wood with the blood side pointing up."  
"What does this do?" Ashton took the hem of his shirt and bound it around his hand.  
"It measures how much power you have stored in your magick core. Here have this instead," she handed him. A strip of cloth from under the desk. "Papa always kept these on hand for when people had to do that, now tightly wrap it around your hand to stop the bleeding."  
"How does it determine how powerful I am?"  
"No clue, this little thing has been around as long as I can remember. Hopefully I still remember how to interpret it," she mumbled to herself something about if the blood drop touched the wood that meant a wand from the glass cabinet.  
After she had interpreted and checked in an old book, Mrs Bulova turned to the cabinet and opened its doors again. She pulled out six wand boxes, "Let's see just which one of these likes you."  
"And if none do?"  
"Then we'll try six more," she took the first box and opened it revealing a simply crafted wand of a light wood. "Rowan wood, 15 inches with the core made of serpent fang."  
Ashton picked up the wand and it instantly backfired. It heated up quickly effectively burning his hand before being magnetized back to its box.  
Sebastianna pulled the second one and did just the same, "Cherry wood, 14.25 inches with a core made of Werewolf fur."  
It acted like the first only less burning and more shocking but still going back to its box.  
"Ebony wood, 7.75 inches core made of a Vampire fang."  
They were half way through the six and nothing seemed to like Ashton so he was getting a little frustrated.  
"Ash wood, 13 inches with an a phoenix ash core."  
...  
"Hawthorn wood, 12.5 inches with a core dipped in Leviathan blood."  
...  
"And finally, from this group.....Bloodwood wand, 15.25 inches with a valkyrie feather core," she delicately handed the wand to her son secretly hoping that this was the one for him.  
With the wand in his grip, Ashton waited for something to happen but nothing did. There was something about it that made it feel almost natural to hold this one in comparison to the others. It didn't burn or shock him and it certainly didn't decide to go back into its box.  
"Hallelujah," she put the other boxes back in the cabinet and clapped her hands together. "Now, I have to go fetch something and then we'll be off," she ran off and left Ashton very confused.  
Fang of serpent? Werewolf fur? Vampire fang? Phoenix ash? What the hell was a Leviathan and why was a wand core dipped in its blood? And valkyrie feather? Valkyrie...feather???? What? Ashton didn't know what to think, this last month and some had been more confusing than anything he could remember from the past thirteen.   
Moments later a very happy go lucky Sebastianna returned with a wand box in her hand. The box was a deep violet colour with a gold stamp on the side facing him. She grabbed the box his wand came in and walked across the shoppe beckoning Ashton to follow her. "You ready to go?"  
"I guess so...," Ashton didn't know what to say to the women that seemed way too happy to be the same women as his mother.  
"Let's go see if your grandmother's family home is still here," she pulled out another hex bag and grabbed Ashton's hand just before squeezing to bag to transport them somewhere new.  
They arrived at an old burnt house that seemed to be slowly falling apart. There was something about the land that made him feel calm and jittery at the same time. Sebastianna walked up to the front door solemnly, Ashton followed her just steps behind her. He knew this was where his mother lived when she was young, now he could see all it was to her was a distant memory. They entered the house, first seeing an old picture frame on the floor with broken shards of glass surrounding it. Sebastianna leaned down and lifted the frame from the glass with an emotionless expression displayed on her face. There were two adults, one he recognized as his grandmother Bulova, and ten small children one of them looked like a very young Sebastianna. Ashton didn't know anyone else in the photograph, but he could guess the man was his grandfather.   
"Who are they?" Ashton ran through his memory again to see if he recognized anyone.  
"Family, awful family," she ran her fingers delicately over the face of the image.  
"Can you tell me who they are?"  
She pointed to the adults first, "Aurelia Bulova and Leonardo De Santis, your grandparents on my side of the family," she moved to the eldest two a boy and girl, "the eldest set of twins Demetra and Danté." Her finger ran to the next set of children, "The second set of twins Luca, he was diabolical, and Emilia. Lorenzo and Romeo," she pointed to the identical twin boys. "The identical twin girls are Ileana and Valentina. And, the boy next to me was Miron."  
"So they are my aunts and uncles?"  
"I wouldn't call them that, Aurelia and Leonardo they were as dark as they come. She taught us girls necromancy and Leonardo branded us all with the mark of necromancy and told us to wear it proudly, like it was some kind of high class gift. They raised us children like that and when Miron and I reach eight we saw the wrongs in their teaching, Leonardo used a death curse on his youngest son the day before him and mother were to send him and me to Ambrosia he said it was a warning."  
"What the age differences, what were they?"  
"Demetra and Danté were sixteen when this photo was taken, Luca and Emilia were fifteen, Lorenzo and Romeo age fourteen, Ileana and Valentina age thirteen, and Miron and I age two."  
"That's large age difference there between you and Valentina/Ileana."  
"They would say Miron and I were a mistake."

Any and all conversation stopped dead in its tracks there. They moved further into the house, stepping over things that had fallen and stepped on things they didn't see. Things were crushed under their feet as they moved through the disaster of a living room to a staircase. The upper levels were in more of a disarray than the ground level except the fourth and top level, that level according to Sebastianna had been taken clear off the house. They looked out to the destroyed backyard only to see the remnants of the roof and fourth floor. The way the debris was scattered could have only been done by wind but the larger, heavier chunks stayed where they had fallen. Sebastianna walked back down the stairs with Ashton close behind to investigate to debris field. They were there for what seemed to be hours sorting through the mess that only seemed to be growing.  
"Okay, Ash, new spell to learn," Sebastianna clapped her hands together and faced her son.  
"What is it?"  
"Take your wand and hold it lightly between your index, middle, and thumb fingers almost like you're about to drop it......good, now point it at a piece of debris and say 'levitare'."  
"Levitare...levitare."  
"No, levitar-eh."  
After four tries he finally managed to get the wooden plank to float three or so feet off the ground before his mother made him stop.  
"What for?" Ashton asked.  
"The colour of the wood underneath it, we never painted anything red," she got to work quickly, levitating objects out of the way as quickly as she could. Soon they discovered the root of the problem.  
"M-mum i-is th-at wh-at I th-i-ink it is?" He pointed at the rubble with a shaky hand.  
"Ashton step back, please," Sebastianna moved the final piece of wood by hand to reveal the final piece of what had turned to wood red. A human skull.  
"The forehead, it's that damn symbol again," Ashton was stressing his voice. He might have stepped away, but he was no less that ten feet and could still see that blasted circular symbol again.   
"I need to alert someone," Sebastianna grabbed Ashton's hand and ran back in the house. On the front lawn she pulled out her cell phone and called the Romanian police then someone else. "For you to know I've called some of my people also because of the symbol as well as the Romanian police."  
His mother's "people", as she put it, we're first to arrive. She explained who she was and they recognized who she was immediately before saying and showing what was found. While they were in the backyard the Romanian police arrived and began questioning them. The two groups spoke for a while before the first group, Ashton guessed to be a group of sorcerers, pulled out badges that he recognized to be CIA badges, his father had one. From the looks of it the Romanians understood what ever it was they were saying and backed off. The two "CIA" people gave them names and the others left.  
"What was that?" Ashton asked the two.  
"Us trying to avoid exposure to even more Relici," the dark red haired "CIA" operative said with a slight New York accent.  
"Mrs Bulova, what does this look like to you?" The other "CIA" operative, the female one, said.  
"Another plague victim, decay of the body fits the same mold for the other victims."  
"The plague is spreading, Ma'am. It's best if you protect your boy while you can," the ginger man added.  
"That school that some have been speaking about, can't you send him there?" The woman asked.  
"If you cant I might be able to pull some strings and get him there, it's in a secluded place that there isn't any know plague victims in a hundred mile radius," the ginger man told Sebastianna and Ashton.  
"You have to put him into some kind of protection, Mrs Bulova.”  
“Its your safest bet at the moment, go.”

With a tip of the head to both of them, Sebastianna and Ashton both left to return to the the front of the house. Ashton grabbed the photo in the front room of the family he never knew his mother had, almost cutting his fingers on the broken glass table top it lay on. Sebastianna Bulova stood in the center of the front yard with a hex bag in hand, she waited for her only son and as soon as he had grabbed her free hand they were instantly transported back to Blackthorne Hall. From Blackthorne Hall they ran quite quickly to the gate door conjoining the Italian and American Bulova properties.


	12. Something Deadly, Something New, Something Borrowed, and Something for You

Plague?   
What plague?  
A dead body in Romania?  
A safe secluded school?  
Wands?  
What the hell was going on? 

Ashton Bulova sat at his school desk not listening to a word the teacher said. He had returned to school around one thirty, though school got out at two forty-five and his mother explained a dozen times that he didn't need to go back. Friday was the last day and today was Wednesday, he still had to see Ryan, Raphael, and Aragon before school ended. They mindlessly wrote down spanish words that he knew they'd never remember as Ashton stared at the blackboard to the left of the smartboard the teacher was writing on. He had lost interest in the language such a long time ago that he simply just didn't care anymore. To many questions lately with too many unknown answers.   
After half an hour of this, Ms Leo caught on to Ashton being completely zoned out and took him out of the room. She asked him if he was feeling alright to which he shook his head, the thought of a plague was making him sick to his stomach. Ms Leo sat him in a chair that always sat outside the room and called Ryan out, the teacher knew that they were best friends and practically siblings so she was the best bet to help Ashton. Ryan asked why she had been summoned and Ms Leo quietly explained and asked if she would take Ashton down to the nurse's office. As the two walked down they heard two pairs of footsteps running up behind them. They turned to see Raphael and Aragon following them.   
"What are you doing?" Ryan asked.  
"I acted like I was going to pass out so Ms Leo sent me to the nurse's office with Raphael being my watch dog," Aragon told them.  
"But that still doesn't explain why you followed us," Ashton replied.  
"I could see it in your eyes, a thought that was causing you unease," Aragon replied.

The four of them walked down to the nurse's office in total silence. There was no other students in the disgustingly pale room, only the unsettling posters that resided on the walls. Her, the cold hearted nurse's, desk was empty except for a bowl of steaming hot soup, it wasn't particularly cold in the room (actually it was quite warm) so the soup made no sense as to why she'd had it. After fifteen or so minutes the cold hearted woman re-entered the room.  
"What do you brats want now?" She snarled at the students.  
"Can I just go home?" Ashton knew exactly which tactics pressed her buttons.  
"I feel lightheaded and my vision keeps blacking out," Aragon took a stumbling step forward to support her claim.  
"I have an ear splitting migraine that makes it feel as though my head might split in two," Raphael covered his eyes as though he were blocking out light from them.  
Ryan said nothing, she simply collapsed on the floor in a heap. Ashton and Raphael picked her up and set her on one of the gurneys that permanently resided in the clinic.  
"I'm going to need your last names to call your parents," the cold hearted woman spoke in a monotone voice and seemed to stretch out each word for more than it was worth.  
"Ashton Bulova, Aragon Vesper, Raphael Winchester, and Ryan Luyddog," Ashton provided and the cold hearted bastard got out the school directory.   
Four times they heard, "Hello, this is Jane Monarow from the clinic at Wilson's School calling about you child....."

Within the hour all four sets of parental unit had shown up with a few children in toe. Sebastianna Bulova was followed by Mr Vesper with three children, Mrs Luyddog, and Mr Winchester with a young girl. Ryan kept her eyes glued on the oldest looking girl to follow Mr Vesper, the girl with long slightly curly dark hair that faded into a light lavender. The adults checked the children out for early dismissal and they returned to their class to gather their things. When they returned everyone stood at the school doors for them and once again Ryan’s eyes locked on the dark haired girl. Once outside the school, Ashton noticed that the girl’s hair was not a dark brown or black like he had thought but a dark violet that faded into lighter and lighter shades of purple. She introduced herself as ‘Aquitaine Vesper, age fourteen eldest of the Vesper children,’ and Ryan hung on her every word. Ashton had to elbow his friend in the side to make sure she didn’t end up making a complete and total fool of herself. The other two girls were Aphrodite, the elder one but still younger than Aragon, and Artemis. As for the other girl, the one who shared a striking resemblance to Raphael, that was Evangelina Winchester. She was younger than Raphael by three years, around the age of Aragon's little sister Artemis.   
The adults walked with their children down the block then across the major road that forced them all to take a bus to school before finally interrogating them on why they were sent home early. They asked them about anything and everything relating to the topic before finally asking who was the first to leave the classroom. Ashton stayed silent as everyone stared his way with questioning expressions. "That body in Hunedoara, and that blasted symbol I've seen too many times to count," he finally said.  
"Go on," Mr Winchester told him calmly.  
And he did.   
Ashton went on about how his mother had taken him to Hunedoara to her family's wand shoppe to get him his own wand then going to her home there. He described the destruction they saw on the house and then in the backyard before trying his best to describe what exactly was found in the rubble. With discretion he told them what had happened with the Romanian police and the supposed 'CIA operatives' said and the operatives mention of this 'secluded school'. Then he told them of the plague and what it supposedly did to a decaying corpse. As a side note he mentioned the circular symbol on his forehead and the adults looked at him like he'd sprung a third head. Aragon seemed uncomfortable when Ashton described what the symbol looked like and nervously rubbed her right upper arm. Immediately, Ashton thought of the girl in the woods the day he learned of magick the one with red curly hair and the symbol on her arm. Sebastianna explained the spread of the plague to them and how dangerous times were getting to everyone. Mrs Luyddog pulled three papers out of her bag and passed them around to the adults before they finally made it to the curious children.  
“And what on earth is this for?” Raphael stopped dead in his tracks.  
“Your new school,” Sebastianna told them.

Ashton ripped the papers from his friends hands and looked it over.

Miss Caramel’s School for the Gifted

School Needs

Dorm Room:  
-Warm blanket / fleece throw  
-bath towels / hand and face towels  
-winter duvet, dual layer  
-extra pillows  
-necessary bathroom essentials  
-first aid items

Clothes:

Uniforms:  
Boys- tan dress pants, black socks, white long and short sleeve button up shirts {unembellished}, and dress shoes  
Girls- tan pleated knee length skirt, opaque black tights, white long and short sleeve button up shirts {unembellished}, and black dress shoes

-Light and heavy weight cardigan for colder season, grey  
-dark grey floor length wool cloak with hood  
-undergarments  
-night clothes

Miscellaneous:

-Water bottle  
-School bag for campus  
-torch  
-fiction / non fiction books  
-musical instrument(s)

Classroom:

-push pins  
-lined/copy paper  
-composition notebooks / notebooks with easy pull paper  
-binder  
-pencils, pens, highlighters, markers  
-ruler, tape, glue, sharpener, eraser, pencil case  
-envelopes, stamps, address 

Documentation:

-passport  
-passport photos(4)  
-money (Relici and Sorcery)

Someone had scribbled in the bottom right hand corner of the page in red ink: ‘Hey, Lela here, I’m one of the graduating class this year (I’m going to study something the relici call ‘Archeology’). So here at Miss Caramel’s we can’t really bring in electronics because the primary level students tend to try and enchant them and everything then goes horribly wrong which leads to an injury/potential lawsuit...but hopefully you’ll be able to tell the good things to enchant from the bad. Two years back me and a few others (eight others to be exact) snuck in some electrical sockets and placed them and extender cables in all the dormitory floors, but mind you there is only one outlet so extender cables will become your best friend, and we’re still working out how to get wifi all over campus though a few dormitories have a relatively working wifi signal. The things you’d need to sneak in, if you own any, are as followed: charger(s), headphones (earbuds are easier to hide), laptop, cellphone (a god sent device), camera (relici or sorcery will do), a music playing device, radio, extra batteries, phone/music device docking station. Hope to see you when you arrive! :) Lela Mae.’ The second paper was just a list of textbooks, Politics of Magick, World of Magick, The Ambrosia Review AP World Magick Review Book, Influence of the Vamprismic Culture, Creatures of our World, Potions Advanced G1, Spells Through the Ages, Transformation of Transfiguration, Protection from Black Magick, Healing 101, Charms for Beginners. Others things listed to bring were a wand, a crystal cauldron, and a broom if you or your family owned one. 

\---

The group was divided up, Aragon and Ryan with Mrs Luyddog and Mrs Bulova and Raphael and Ashton with Mr Winchester and Mr Vesper. Before leaving for anywhere, the three Vesper children and young Winchester were left in the care of Lance and Lin Luyddog. The two boys had stayed home from school today so it was an obvious decision to leave the younger ones with them. 

“What do you want to deal with first?” Mr Vesper asked the two children in the back of his car.   
“We can get dorm supplies first, shouldn’t that be the easiest to deal with?” Ashton asked.  
“True, where do you want to check first?”  
“Somewhere that sells bedding would be good,” Raphael said.  
“Okay, Raph," Mr Winchester said with a laugh to his son.  
"Where shall we be going for these items?" Mr Vesper asked, seemingly oblivious to the fact that the mall was nearby.  
"There's the mall, Mr Vesper. There are enough shops that we must be able to find something there," Ashton spoke quietly under his voice to a man he barely knew.  
"Dulles or National?" Raphael side glanced at his friend and raised an eyebrow.  
"Either works."

They drove silently to the shopping center, you could have heard a pin drop if they hadn't been driving down the freeway. The parking lot was filled but after driving around the lot a few times they found a spot that a car had just pulled out of. Mr Winchester parked his old 1940's cab and motioned for everyone to get out. Raphael and Ashton tried to not laugh when a woman and her cart passed by and her jaw dropped at the sight of the yellow car they had just exited. Suddenly conversation began to spark and Raphael went on and on about how he was going to find the brightest and boldest pattern in existence for his bed coverings. The funniest part of the whole ordeal was that Raphael had not convinced his father to buy him the duvet cover with galaxies, on it but a bohemian looking one. Ashton, being the complete opposite from Raphael, went with a simple grey insanely puffy comforter.   
They made their way back to the car to throw everything in the car when Ashton realized they might not have enough room in the trunk. Even with Raphael’s decision to have the comforter he got in the back seat with himself, there still seemed to be not enough room in the trunk. Mr Winchester checked to make sure that there wasn’t anyone near before he opened the trunk top. He threw everything in the trunk and much to Ashton’s surprise, the trunk of the car was like the trunk at home. The quartet met the others up at a nearby office supplies store and Ashton felt completely smitten with himself; Ryan had convinced her mother to buy her a comforter, and everything else, covered in galaxy patterns. Aragon went on and on about how Ryan had obsessed over everything, literally everything. 

_______________

Raphael and Ashton sat on the floor of Ashton’s room the night before they were to leave for Miss Caramel’s Academy practicing magick. They had an old leather bound book of spells sitting on the floor open to a spell that was to reveal anything they pleased. Raphael asked if there was a pure silver mirror anywhere in order for them to try the spell. The spell required a pure silver mirror, three drops of water, one drop blood from the person that wanted to know what would be revealed about them, and the wand of the same person.   
Ashton sneaked into his mother’s room quietly to try and find the old mirror his mother kept. It was an old thing, aged some five hundred years, hand crafted out of pure silver. She had once told Ashton that it was an heirloom from her family in Romania, kept in the family from the days of the infamous Vlad III Drăculea. The mirror was in an old wooden box kept in the top of the book shelf. When Ashton found the box it was tied shut with red velvet ribbon and sandwiched between two books on the verge of falling apart. It was like it hadn't been touched in years judging by the fact it was covered in dust. He delicately held it in the moon lit room,where his mother was still sleeping, he inspected it before making his return to his own room.  
Raphael sat patiently on the floor waiting for Ashton to return. He tapped out a subtle beat with his fingers on the hardwood floor and bopped his head, not to vigorously, along with it. When he heard to door open, he instantly stopped to meet Ashton's eyes. In the darkened room only lit by the moon, though casting a shadow due to the tree in front of the window, Raphael's eyes asked, "Do you have it?" To which Ashton only nodded, slow and deliberate. Raphael grinned widely at that, he'd heard about this spell before but was unable to try it due to the fact his family didn't have any pure silver mirrors and his siblings wouldn't be willing to help him.   
Ashton sat adjacent to Raphael on the floor, and with delicate hands he untied and opened to box. He lifted the mirror from its soft velvet bed gently as though it were made of fragile cracked glass. When unearthed from its box, Ashton placed it right between himself and Raphael on the wood floor. Raphael quietly stood to gather his water bottle, he unscrewed the cap and dabbed his right pointer finger in it. He placed three drops of water in a triangle formation of the glimmering mirror face. Raphael looked up at Ashton asking if he would go first or if Ashton would like to try. Ashton thought, 'Why not, nothing harmful right?' Out of nowhere, Raphael conjured up a sewing pin before handing it over to his friend. Ashton took it gingerly then inspected it's sharp point, he winced slightly as he pressed the point down into his index finger till he saw a drop of blood. His blood. He dangled his finger above the center of the triangle for a second until he saw a small drop of blood fall in the center.   
Raphael said the spell, “Me Retegere.”  
Ashton looked into the mirror and suddenly felt the need to stare into it. Without realizing it he leaned in as though he could go through the mirror. Everything fogged up and felt a cold breeze.   
He opened his eyes and Ashton saw himself standing in the middle of a vast field. There was a crystal clear river that cut in between two mountains blanketed in greenery. He felt as though he’d seen that sight before in a photograph, or maybe a post card. Wondering what he was surrounded by, Ashton turned around to see what was behind him. There was a village behind him, a small quaint little thing. He saw a group of kids playing and running towards him as though they could be see him. There one at the head of the group had a little paper airplane that floated through the air, he moved it with the wand in his hand. As they passed him Ashton recognized the boy with the paper plane.   
“Jac! Jac wait up!” One of the other children yelled, running after him.  
Jac? The close resemblance, was this a young Jacobitte? Ashton walked closer to the boy to look at him. He had the same gold eyes as his father, the ones he himself had inherited, the pale completion dusted with millions of freckles, the curly wild light brown or blond hair.   
“Jacobitte, time for dinner,” a woman yelled from the village. His grandmother, possibly.  
He tried to focus his vision but it just seemed to blur and the breeze seemed to diminish. The next place he saw was a ballroom with people in fancy dress. A redheaded girl caught his attention. The girl looked like Aragon. She ran after a woman with equally red hair but with long red loose ringlets instead. The woman in question wore a green dress that slightly trailed behind her. There was a woman in a white on the far side of the room. Was this a wedding? Ashton thought he'd remember going to a wedding, but apparently not. He moved forward, he'd learned in the breezy place that no one could see him, and explored. There must have been two hundred people in the room! Then the entire room seemed to shift, it was like he was suddenly sent forward in time by a few hours.   
Everyone was silent now, a pin being dropped could be heard. A group of thirteen stood at the entrance to the room. Ashton looked around, suddenly it felt like all the air had been drawn from his lungs. He was looking at himself. So he had been here, and everything came back to him like someone had broken a flood gate, he remembered everything. This was the wedding of the eldest Venedecci girl, he learned that the world his parents had kept a secret from him had a royal family, and he was in the royal palace of the Venedecci's on an island that could be considered on of the Greek islands. The thirteen were here to slaughter the attendants. Magick that appeared in clouds of purple dust choked out the light in the room. Screams were coming from all around him. Everything was disorienting, he couldn’t focus on any one thing. A sharp pain struck him in his right temple, he doubled down in pain and screamed into the void. Somehow he ended up on the ground in a fetal position in order to cancel out everything else. He shut his eyes so tightly it stung, within seconds he lost track of time.  
The smoke cleared but Ashton still lay on the floor in pain. When the pain had subsided enough he rose to his feet to view the carnage left. He saw the eldest Venedecci girl, the king, the boy she must have married going by his attire, and the three other members of his family (going by their facial structures they must have been related, the girl had to be his twin they looked that much alike) dead on the floor lying in pools of blood. An elaborate gold crown lay upside down a few feet from Ashton, he guessed the king must have been wearing it due to it being directly in line with his body. Most of the people, the two hundred Ashton had theorized, lay dead on the ground; the majority of them had frightful screams plastered on their faces forever immortalizing the terror they saw in their last moments.   
Ashton blinked, everything was now gone. He stood in a circular room lined with twelve beds. Two people sat on the bed nearest the window a white blond boy and an auburn haired girl. They spoke silently amongst themselves. He walked to them and recognized the pair, Caligo de Dracon and Dracara Venedecci. A cello was rested against Caligo's left shoulder and a bow in his right hand. When did he start playing cello?   
Ashton sat on the window ledge and listened to their conversation.   
“Did you ever say anything?” Dracara asked him.  
“No, I didn’t know it at the time. And now he hates me, he’ll hate me anymore if I told him,” Caligo’s voice cracked at the end of his sentence.  
“But you like him.”  
“Yeah-”  
“From the sounds of it though you love him, Cal.”  
“You know my background, Dracara, I barely know what love is.”  
“Will you at least tell me who this mystery man is?”  
“Maybe.”  
“Do I know him?”  
“You met him when during your hospital stay.”  
“I met a lot of people then, describe him.”  
“Brunette, pale complication, golden eyes, the cutest crinkles around his eyes when he smiles and laughs, and on the topic of laughing, his is the most angelic sound I have ever heard,” Caligo said with compete awh.  
Ashton was taken aback, Caligo couldn’t be talking about him could he? He was talking about a guy with golden eyes, like himself, and brown hair. Now brown hair isn’t all that uncommon, but gold eyes that is.  
“I have someone in mind.”  
“Will you tell me who you think it is?”  
“He’s sweet, and thinks outside the box.”  
“Yes, that describes him.”  
“Curious.”  
“Yes.”  
“He’s Scottish, Italian, and Romanian by blood but grew up in the colonies.”  
“You mean America?”  
“It’s the same place.”  
“Anyway, his first name starts with ‘A’ and last begins with ‘B’.”  
“Yes.”  
“Would this mystery boy be named, Ashton Bulova?”  
Caligo dropped his head to his hands and in a muffled voice said, “Yes.”

Ashton was taken aback, he blinked several times and blinked several times. He must have heard that wrong. He quickly lost control of his breathing. Without thinking he rubbed his eyes, but as soon as his hands left his face he noticed that he was back in his own room with Raphael.  
“Mama dracului,” Ashton said wide eyed before falling on his back, unconscious.


	13. Angles and Demons

The next morning was a rush, Ashton’s mother had already acquired the tickets some how. So around four o’clock pm that day Ashton sat in the Dulles Airport with his mother, Aragon, Raphael, Ryan, and Mrs Luyddog. He watched the ribbon sign above the terminal door, it would alert him when they would be boarding their flight. With a thousand questions a second going through his mind, Ashton lay his head down on Aragon's shoulder only to get a face full of thick red Scottish curls. The feel of the curls were quite annoying to him so he understood why the girl wore her hair up most of the time, unless she was feeling completely and utterly lazy that day. Aragon seemed to have become the pillow for the group, Ashton's head on her shoulder, Raphael asleep in her lap, and sweet little Ryan on the floor with her arms wrapped around the other girl's ankles. About an hour ago Ryan had become fed up with the airport chairs and had decided the floor was a better place for her tired self.  
Two hours they waited, two hours. By the time they were allowed to board the aircraft only the adults, Sebastianna and Mr Vesper, were completely coherent because of their discussion revolving around politics. Aragon mumbled gaelic phrases, Raphael snored contently, Ryan had a book, Dracula, open but currently just sitting on her face, and Ashton was trying to get his fingers out of Aragon's hair after his failed attempt at braiding part of it, and well Aragon just stared off into the nothingness and vacancy of space.   
"Now boarding flight 310 to Denver, Colorado," the news quickly awoke everyone, everyone accept Raphael; Aragon pushed Raphael off her lap to wake him, but he landed on top of Ryan who looked as though she was about to claw his eyes out.  
Ashton grabbed his bag from the seat behind him, in the process he hit Mr Vesper in the face with the loose straps of the bag by mistake. He almost made a run for the terminal door but he stopped himself before he did. Aragon stood next to him and watched Ryan and Raphael, the adults dragged the four children through the gate and onto the plane not wanting to wait for them. They had six seats next to each other, three on the right hand side of the plane and three in the middle in the row adjacent. Ashton sat with his mother at the window seat and Ryan in the center, Ryan and him watched Star Trek to pass the time. Sebastianna leaned against the window and slept, much like the treo sitting in the center. Raphael and Aragon were asleep on top of each other, Ryan said it looked cute and that she "shipped them".

\--------

Ashton had fallen asleep but was awoken when the intercom told the passengers, “Please buckle your seatbelts as we make our descent into Denver.” He wasn’t entirely awake, not in the slightest, but he was awake enough to shove his best friend’s head off his shoulder to try and awaken her.   
A groggy Ryan told him, “I hate you, Bulova.”  
“Love you too, Guienevere.”  
“I may not be entirely awake, but I am awake enough to your eyes out.”  
“Shuddup, Guienevere.”  
“No.”  
“Wake Up!” A pillow came hurdling at his head from the direction of a very awake ginger. “Wake up! WAKE UP!”  
Ashton leaned his head back against the seat and let out a long sigh, gosh he wanted off that plane. He closed his eyes and tried to not go to sleep again. Couldn’t they be at the damned school already?   
It was about ten minutes until the plane's wheels actually made contact with the runway, it sure as hell had been an agonizing ten minutes though. Aragon was telling Ashton a story in what must have been Gaelic by the way the words sounded, she looked at he as though he understood every phrase forgetting the fact he'd never been taught the language. Sure Ashton had heard Gaelic from time to time in his house, his father was a native Scot, but no one had ever taught him what everything meant; so Ashton looked at the ginger girl, smiled, and nodded from time to time. Ryan, however, had mysteriously conjured up a sandwich and was happily eating it as she kicked her muddy orange converse up on Ashton's lap, much to his almost constant fuss whenever she did so, and leaned against Mrs Bulova. He rolled his eyes and silently counted away the minutes till touch down.

Ashton let out a sigh of relief, he didn't know he'd been holding in, when the plane's landing gear made contact with the air strip. He hated planes but he also knew he'd be on a plane to Portland the next morning. When the plane finally stopped Ashton was so fed up with the plane he felt like he could scream, but alas he wouldn’t have to endure the airline food and cramped quarters anymore, at least for that day. The stewardess came on the overcomm and told that passengers that in an orderly fashion they may leave the plane once the door was open. As she spoke Raphael and Aragon had already began to gather their carryon and Ryan quickly shoved the rest of her sandwich in her mouth so she could throw all her carry on in her beat up Disney World duffle bag. Ashton waited a bit before he stood up, and nearly fell back down due to the fact he hadn’t realized his legs had fallen asleep during the flight, he reached for the overhead compartment to grab his mother’s small polka dotted suitcase and his orange and white duffle that reminded him of the flight suits that X-wing pilots wore in Star Wars. They made their way to the front of the plane when an older gentleman stopped Ashton.  
“Beware of the darkness, boy,” he said.  
“What?” Ashton had no idea what that meant.  
“The darkness will always follow you.”  
“I’m sorry but I must be going now,” Ashton was too confused for his own good. Was this man hallucinating?  
“You will fall to the darkness and the Ecclesia will be grateful for it.”  
The mention of the Ecclesia caught his attention, it also caused him to move a bit faster. His mother came up behind him, guiding him to the exit. Once they had gotten through the airplane's’ door hatch and through the tunnel connecting the plane to airport Ashton turned around and looked for the bizarre old man but he was nowhere to be seen. Ryan expressed a genuine concern for her flustered best friend asking if he was alright, but Ashton did not answer her.   
“Come on, let's get our stuff and leave,” Ashton told her before trying to find the baggage terminal.   
Everyone sensed that there was something obviously wrong with Ashton but no one said anything about it, they just followed the boy to where the baggage terminal was supposed to be. Ashton walked with a purpose to the bags, but turned away from the bag carrisol and down a corridor instead. Aragon followed after him, making sure he didn’t get himself into any trouble.   
“Ash?” She was several feet from him, all she wanted was answers.  
“What?!?!” Ashton sounded agitated, aggressive even.  
“Whats wrong with you? The way you’re acting, it seems like you’re at war with yourself.”  
“Well I’m not, Aragon, just lay off it.”  
“And there's the answer I’ve been looking for. Ashton just close your eyes and clear your mind.”   
“Why?”  
“I’ve seen this before, someone’s tempting you.”  
Raphael ran up behind Aragon and stopped right next to her. He tucked a stray hair behind her ear before talking, “What's going on?” Ashton was pretty much sure he had a thing for the feisty scott.  
“Someone’s tempting Ashton,” she spoke quietly as if she didn’t want Ashton to hear. Aragon looked to her friend at the end of the hall before whispering in Raphael’s ear. Raphael’s eyes went wide, he stared at Ashton, terror in his eyes.   
“Ashton, you need to come here. Its for your own good,” Raphael put out his hand towards Ashton in an inviting manor.   
“No!” His voice was shaky, unsure of itself.  
“We’re trying to help you.”  
“From what?”  
“Yourself!” Aragon spoke up this time.  
“Myself?”  
“Yes, yourself. Now if you come with us we can save you before you do something you will regret.”  
“They’re trying to seduce you, bring you to their cause.”  
“What are you guys talking about?” His face was bright red, his voice cracked with almost every word. Ashton was scared of something.   
“You have dark magick in your blood, Ashton they are using it against you,” Aragon told him.  
“Who?”  
“The Ecclesia de Illumination or the Custos de Divinus are manipulating you.”

Ashton’s blood ran cold. He knew of the Ecclesia, having read a book about them that was from the library at Blackthorne Hall. Internally, he was now terrified. 

Ashton heard a dark growling voice in his head, Don’t listen to them, they know nothing. Ashton’s heart began racing, he was panicking. He didn’t notice Aragon walk towards him to summon him back to the others. She grabbed his wrist timidly, she didn’t know if he would lash out at her. The last time she’d seen someone be tempted to the dark side, then fall to the power of it, every time she tried to help him, he’d lash out at her she only hoped Ashton was strong enough to not fall to the temptation of the darkness. 

“Ashton, please,” Aragon was pleading.

\-----------

Ashton laid on a bed in a hotel room somewhere in Denver. It had been the third hotel they had tried to check into, his mother was being was too fruggle. He closed his eyes and pondered the things he’d heard from that growling voice over the past few hours. They are nothing; they are weak. The voice told him again, it wouldn’t go away. It lurked in the back of his mind like a dull throbbing headache. He closed his eyes and allowed himself to be lulled to sleep in the darkness.   
As it neared one o’clock in the morning he heard the beginnings of the conflict outside. Ashton heard his mother get up and walk to the window, gasping in horror at what she saw unfolding on the street below.   
“Ecclesia,” he heard her whisper.  
At that, Ashton quickly got dressed and woke the others. “Wake up,” he sharply told the others.   
Ryan was up first, Aragon last, though she did lounge around in her night clothing. “Let's go see the action.”  
“First hand? Right out there?”  
“Of course, it’ll be exciting.”  
“I’ll get Aragon.”  
“I’ll get Raphael.”  
The two went in separate directions to get the other two. Raphael was reading and Aragon was still, somewhat, asleep with her head pinned under a pillow. It took a few extra minutes to rouse the girl from her slumbers but after five or so minutes, and a cup of cold water to the head, she got out of bed and began to rummage through her belongings for a light jacket. In pure silence, the four snuck out of the hotel room and ran down to the elevator at the end of the hall. They were on their way to a battle.   
Pure chaos covered the streets. Spells could be heard coming from every direction, terrorizing the Relici outside. The bodies of those who stood in the way of the Ecclesia members lay in wait in the middle of the street, the sidewalks, and in alleyways; no one was safe. Ryan stretched out her arms to hold back the other three but it was no use, Ashton had already escaped her grasp. He ran out into the line of fire to see what was unfolding in front of him. Red and violet dust seemed to cover the streets, coming from the wands of the Ecclesia, as it choked out those who were either not magically inclined or not prepared to deflect its effects.  
A man stood in the middle of the street screaming at the top of his lungs at the Ecclesia members. He had a pistol in one hand and a wand in the other, he was yelling fighting words. A group of people were listening, the things he was speaking of drew in the quartet. He had a group of magick users surronding him shooting spells defensivly every which way.   
“Get those people to safety,” he told two of his defenders as he pointed to a group of frightened people in front of a shoppe.  
“On it,” one of the two, the woman, said.  
The man making commands climbed up on top of a car and conjured a megaphone out of the middle of nowhere.  
“Everybody,” he began speaking as his defender crew grew in size and created a circle of protection around sorcerers and relici alike.  
“Good morning, everyone. It’s concidered morning, right? Yeah, its past midnight. Now I know not all of you know what is going on right now, but know this, we are not your enemy. A group known as the Ecclesia de Illuminatio are. United we shall stand, those who may not be supernaturally inclined standing hand-in-hand with those who are fighting to crush those who mean to do harm to the innocent. United- that word should have a new meaning after this as long as we all stand together, as one. No longer will we be consumed by our petty differences, we will be united under common interests to protect yourselves, your families, and your country.”  
People in the crowd began hollering at the man’s words in agreement. They banded together against the Ecclesia to save the innocent.   
The Ecclesia on the other hand didn’t agree with the plan to the Relici and magickly inclined banding together. Groups of Relici and magick ly  
One man, a tall one with a nasty scar running down his face, caught sit of Ashton and charged straight at him. There was a look of death in his vacant eyes.   
With nothing but his wit, Ashton knew he would be fighting a losing battle against the scarface. He mentally ran over all of the spells he had read over recently hoping there was something he had read that would deflect any hit from the scarface. Sadly, there was nothing. He stood there and closed his eyes waiting for his death. A voice in his head told him to fight back though.  
He held out his hand in a relaxed manner but with his pointer finger towards scarface, he spoke the first spell that came to his mind. "Ad mortem," he spoke in a hushed tone, almost ashamed he had used magick in public. Upon opening his eyes he learned of the horrors that he had just inflicted. The scarface lay dead in the middle of the road.   
Ryan came rushing up to him, wrapping her arms around him tightly. She kept whispering, 'No more darkness,' in his ear like she was trying to keep a small child innocent of the harsh realities of the world surrounding them. Aragon ran up to them, with Raphael, throwing deflection spells in every which way. She grabbed Ashton's wrist and yanked at him, pulling the four of them into a shadowed alleyway. Images came flooding back to Ashton, he now knew where he had heard that spell and why it had sounded so foreignforeign to him. There was a wedding that had been infiltrated by the Ecclesia, 'ad mortem' was one of the spells he had heard in his time of fleeing. Ad mortem was a death spell.  
The four of them stayed huddled up in the alleyway, practicly ontop of eachother, for who knows how long. People would run down screaming, others in a dazed state but no one seemed to acknowlage their presance in the alley. Well, no one until an Ecclesia member walked down.  
"Here, little Bulova, why don't you come out and play. Sucombe to your dark side," it was a deep gritty voice that sent shivers down Ashton's spine.  
Ashton curled up in a fetal position, he just wanted it all to stop. He felt Aragon place her head on his knee, her course curls rubbing against his cheek, and Ryan and Raphael huddle in even closer to him. They heard the sounds of police sirens in the distance, some rather close to them.  
"Here, litrle Bulova. You know you want to join us," the man was now even closer. So close that he grabbed the back of Aragon's head and pulled her closer to his hight to look at her. He whispered 'Lux' just before a ball of light appered in his hand to examine Aragon's face. "You're not a Bulova, ginger."  
Aragon was about to fight back, she hated being called 'Ginger', when he threw her across the alley. Ryan was the first to scream, Raphael was silenced in shock. Ashton found a sliver of wood next to the wall, he hoped it was sharp. He grabbed it in his hand, in a way his father had told him would be difficult to deflect, and stabbed the man in the leg.  
"There's the Bulova," the man grinned a frightening grin. Most of his front teeth were either blackened or missing. "Too much like your poor excuse for a mother; trying to be on the light side. Well sorry, sweetheart, that's not your choice."  
A pair of footsteps ran down the alley towards them," GET ON THE GROUND AND PUT YOUR HANDS WHERE WE CAN SEE THEM!"  
The man was strangly complient. On his knees in a secon though he still continued to grin the frightening grin.  
"Dawson, you deal with the children," one of the officers said as he pushed the man to the ground and hand cuffed him, "Killed a lot today, bet you were the one masocure who thought it up. Lycan Bayonette you are under arrest for the murders of countless murders across the courtey, everything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law...," the officer lifted him of the ground as he spoke this 'Lycan Bayonette's' miranda rights to him. He guided him towards a cop car Ashton haden't realised was at the moutht of the alley. The other officer, Dawson and he'd been called, came and sat by Ashton, Raphael, and Ryan.   
"Are you three okay?"  
"Go check Aragon first," Ryan told him, Raphael vigorusly nodded in agreement. Ashton was still trying to figure out what in the nine hells had just happened.   
The four of them stayed huddled up in the alleyway, practically on top of each other, for who knows how long. People would run down screaming, others in a dazed state but no one seemed to acknowledge their presence in the alley. Well, no one until an Ecclesia member walked down.  
"Here, little Bulova, why don't you come out and play. Sucombe to your dark side," it was a deep gritty voice that sent shivers down Ashton's spine.  
Ashton curled up in a fetal position, he just wanted it all to stop. He felt Aragon place her head on his knee, her course curls rubbing against his cheek, and Ryan and Raphael huddle in even closer to him. They heard the sounds of police sirens in the distance, some rather close to them.  
"Here, little Bulova. You know you want to join us," the man was now even closer. So close that he grabbed the back of Aragon's head and pulled her closer to his height to look at her. He whispered 'Lux' just before a ball of light appeared in his hand to examine Aragon's face. "You're not a Bulova, ginger."  
Aragon was about to fight back, she hated being called 'Ginger', when he threw her across the alley. Ryan was the first to scream, Raphael was silenced in shock. Ashton found a sliver of wood next to the wall, he hoped it was sharp. He grabbed it in his hand, in a way his father had told him would be difficult to deflect, and stabbed the man in the leg.  
"There's the Bulova," the man grinned a frightening grin. Most of his front teeth were either blackened or missing. "Too much like your poor excuse for a mother; trying to be on the light side. Well sorry, sweetheart, that's not your choice."  
A pair of footsteps ran down the alley towards them," GET ON THE GROUND AND PUT YOUR HANDS WHERE WE CAN SEE THEM!"  
The man was strangely compliant. On his knees in a second though he still continued to grin the frightening grin.  
"Dawson, you deal with the children," one of the officers said as he pushed the man to the ground and handcuffed him, "Killed a lot today, bet you were the one massacre who thought it up. Lycan Bayonette you are under arrest for the murders of countless murders across the country, everything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law...," the officer lifted him of the ground as he spoke this 'Lycan Bayonette's' miranda rights to him. He guided him towards a cop car Ashton hadn't realised was at the mouth of the alley. The other officer, Dawson and he'd been called, came and sat by Ashton, Raphael, and Ryan.   
"Are you three okay?"  
"Go check Aragon first," Ryan told him, Raphael vigorously nodded in agreement. Ashton was still trying to figure out what in the nine hells had just happened. The office went over to the girl, he checked her vitals before lifting her prone body from the ground. He knew that it would be best if he placed her on a stretcher but there was no time to wait for an ambulance. 

\---------

The officer placed them in his car. Ashton was a little excited, not only was he in a real live police car but he would also be sitting in the front seat. Mama and Father never let him sit in the front. Aragon would be stretched out across Ryan and Raphael’s laps in the back as they drove to the hospital.   
“What did you say your names were?” Detective Dawson asked Ashton on their way to the hospital.  
“The red head, that's Aragon Vesper. Blondie is legally Guinevere Luyddog but everyone calls her Ryan and she usually says her last name is Black because it's easier to say then Luyddog, and the other boy that’s Raphael Winchester. And I’m Ashton, Ashton Bulova.”  
“Well, Mr Ashton Bulova you lot are safe now.”

\---------

They took Aragon to a hospital where it was discovered had several fractures to her forearms and hands from where she tried to put her arms up in protection and survivable blunt force trauma to the her head. The injuries she had sustained had rendered her unconscious and would be placed in a medically induced coma till her brain’s swelling went down. She would be okay, but not for some time.


	14. 503

Aragon was still in a coma in Denver with her father by her side as the other four flew to Portland, Oregan. From Portland they would go to a place in the Rocky Mountains to a place known as ‘Miss Caramel’s School for the Gifted’. It was a school hidden away from the prying eyes of the Relici. 

\---------

Sebastianna Bulova rented a small van to transport them from the airport through the Mountains to the school. She described it as an ancient dwelling crafted to look like the castles of old that dusted the lands of Europe. From what they had been told Ashton gathered the image of lots of smaller buildings crafted out of stone that looked like small medieval castles but no towers. The main building was the largest of them, which to Ashton made sense.   
The closer they got, the more excited Ashton and the others got. This was a new place, somewhere none of them had ever been. Ashton hadn’t ever gone further than the Mississippi River in the country, even though he had always asked if his family could go to Nevada or California.   
Ten miles. Ten bloody miles left till they reached a wondrous world of magick and anything else supernatural. They had been told that upon arrival they would be meeting Master of Magick, Ira Redford. He was a rare anomaly, this Redfield, he was incredibly powerful and Relici born; a combination like that was almost unheard of. Apparently there were not one but TWO teachers like that at the school. Two of them!   
To pass the time, Ashton played over a piece from orchestra in his head. The Serenade for Strings by Norman Leyden. His favorite part of the four movement piece was either the fugue or cakewalk but the nocturne made him wish that he had chosen to play violin instead of viola. He spaced out after a bit, thinking of the orchestral music was slowly putting him to sleep.  
Ashton diverted his eyes to the clock on the dashboard of the car. 5:03 am. Five o’three am. Five o’freaking three am. Couldn’t it be noon already or could I just go to sleep, Ashton thought to himself.  
“Mum, why didn’t you tell me?” Ashton rolled his head to his left shoulder and looked at his mother.  
“Tell you what, sweetheart?”  
“About magick? The fact that we have magick?”  
“Your Father and I were going to when we felt the time was right but then we were invited to the Venedecci’s eldest daughter’s wedding, that is a mouth full, and we believed that that would be a good way to break it to you.”  
“The Venedecci’s wedding?”  
“Yes.”  
“I don’t remember going to a wedding.”  
“Well you wouldn’t, not to be rude. We, your Father and I, blocked your memories of it for your safety.”  
Ashton thought for a second, he then realized he had remembered it. “It was a bloodbath wasn’t it. A group of Ecclesia members arrived and started killing people, like they did in Denver.”  
“How do you know that?” Sebastianna’s eyes went wide. The memory charm that had been used was unbreakable, unless an incredible amount of power was used to break the walls it put up in one’s mind.  
“I don’t know. I don’t remember going to a wedding, but I remember being in a room that was under siege from people that must have been with the Ecclesia. And Ryan was there, Raphael, Aragon, and...Cal-,” Ashton stopped himself from saying Caligo’s first name aloud. “..the de Dracon boy too.”

\-----

When the car rolled up to what Ashton figured to be ‘Miss Caramel’s School for the Gifted’, he suddenly got an eerie feeling about the place. Like the kinds he’d get when he walked by a cemetery or like when he was with his family in New York and the manager of the hotel told the residents that they couldn’t leave for a while because there was three bodies out front that had been murdered. He didn’t get the ‘death vibe’, as he called it, from the school but it definitely was unsettling and had an almost dark presence that set him on edge. Raphael and Ryan had woken up at this time, just as they began to drive down the long dirt road.   
The dirt road was lined with trees, creating a tunnel of sorts, and at the end of the drive a building could be seen. The dark presence was making itself more known now. They pulled up to the main building, a man stood out front.   
Sebastianna stopped the car and got out, “You must be Ira Redfield.” She shook his hand lightly.  
“Yes, Ma’am, that would be correct.”  
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mr Redfield.”  
“The pleasure is mine, now if you will follow me I will introduce you to Miss Caramel herself and some of the staff will unload the children’s bags and take them to their rooms.”  
Ashton stopped for a second as Ryan and Raphael got out of the car. He suddenly speed to the trunk of the car and opened the trunk to gather one of his belongings. His beloved Viola. Tugging on the straps of its case, Ashton pulled the case free of the tightly packed suitcases. Feeling a sigh of relief when he finally unearthed the delicate instrument, Ashton felt that he could go with this ‘Ira Redford’ now that he had his instrument. He had never trusted anyone other than himself and his parents with the viola.  
They followed the man down winding staircases and stone hallways that felt strangely damp, that is until he stopped at room that looked like the lab of a mad scientist. There was five people in the room one of them, a man around Mr Redfield's age, seemed to be stabbing something in a vial over a fire.  
“Oh my god, Swift, I swear I have told you this before...STOP MESSING WITH MY POTIONS, DAMNIT!”   
“But I like your potions.”  
“I will slap you if you don’t put that down.”  
“Oh...in front of all these people,” the man put his right hand to his chest in mock shock. “Ira, dear, you know what that could lead to.”  
“Put...down...the...bloody...VIAL-,” he stopped mid-sentence. ”No, I have a better idea.”  
“Do share with the rest of the class please,” the man leaned over the fire to rest his hands, and the vial on a table top.  
“Lela, stab him please,” Ira told the girl in the floor length blue dress.   
“With pleasure,” the girl, Lela, took out her wand and chased the man out of the room with it. The wand almost looked like a dagger of sorts.  
“Who was that?” Ashton asked.  
“Swift Morteley, your teacher for scrying, leylines, shrines, and seances,” Ira told Ashton. “Now, Mrs Bulova you said something about getting the test done, correct?”  
“Yes.”  
“What test?” Ashton looked at his mother with confusion in his eyes.  
“A magick test to test your dark to light magick ratio,” Mr Redfield turned to face Ashton. “Now this might sound weird but I'm going to need a piece of your hair.”  
“Why?”  
“That's how the spell works, your DNA is infused with magick. From that piece of hair were can read your DNA and magick levels. Now this spell will take a while to process, so we'll probably have the results either tonight or tomorrow morning.”  
“okay then,” Sebastianna said.  
“Now, Miss Venedecci and Mr de Dracon will you escort Mr Bulova and?” Ryan and Raphael had yet to introduce themselves.  
“Luyddog, Guinevere Luyddog but I go by Ryan,” Ryan told him. “And this is Raphael Winchester.”  
“Mister de Dracon and Miss Venedecci, please escort Misters Bulova and Winchester and Miss Luyddog to the sorcery rooms.”  
Dracara bowed her head, “Yes, Mr Redfield. This way please.” The girl gestured them to follow her. Ryan, Raphael, and Ashton followed out of pure curiosity whereas the white haired boy stayed put. She lightly took his wrist, “Come along now, Caligo.”  
Ashton followed Dracara, and a reluctant Caligo, back down a winding hall. He stares at the back of Caligo’s head the whole time just thinking to himself, ‘he likes me and all I’ve done is hate him for years’. Something about his surroundings made him think back to those final weeks of his friendship with Caligo before everything blew up between them. Upon realization, something Raphael told him a while back made sense now.  
"But did you see the way he looked at you? It was like you were the ocean and he was desperate to drown."  
That statement suddenly hit Ashton like a freight train. It all made sense now. The way Caligo looked at him so long ago and even now, the look remained unchanged. Caligo remained unchanged, well almost he now sported an ever so present black streak in his almost white hair. But his attitude, that had changed. He walked with pride in his step but hid behind almost dead seafood coloured eyes. For now, Ashton’s Caligo was all but gone.   
Ashton stopped. Since when had he ever thought of Caligo as his? Caligo had always made it a point that he would never belong to anyone….ever.

\-------

Dracara led the quartet outside and across a green to a hill with a door in the side of it. “Welcome to the sorcery dorms, yes I know this looks rather strange,” She opened the door, allowing the group to go inside. “Uhm...Bulova,” Dracara caught Ashton’s attention just as he walked inside. “I don't think I ever got and chance to thank you. The healers said if it weren't for you it would have been highly unlikely that I would have survived. Since I am now in your debt, is there anything I can do for you in return?”  
“The only thing I would ask is something you probably cannot do...oh...and Dracara, you are in no one's debt.”  
“I still might be able to help. Bulova, what is it you need help with?”  
“First of all, my name is Ashton and people refer to my father as ‘Bulova’ so being called that sounds weird. Second, a friend of mine is in a coma thanks to the Ecclesia.”  
“The battle at Denver?”  
“How did you know that?”  
“The only recent attack from the Ecclesia was in Denver, and the look in your eyes validates my theory. Now, I can contact my mother and have her send the family healer, he's quite possibly the best, and he'll be able to help your friend in no time. Who is this friend of yours?”  
“Aragon Vesper.”  
“The feisty, ginger Scott?”  
“That would be her?”  
“Her family was apart of our court in Scotland, or well it used to be a long time ago.”  
“Shouldn't we go find the others?” Ashton decided it was a good time to change the topic. He thought to himself ‘Probably should have changed it a while ago.’  
The princess led him through a maze of halls and rooms until they reached a set of French doors at least twelve feet high. The doors were painted a yellowish colour with a intricate vine and floral pattern and each was aborted with a delicate gold handle. Ashton reached out to the door on his right and pushed open the door with ease. Before him was and circular room with a large, open, window adjacent to the doors. Cream coloured curtains blew ever so slightly in the wind which made Ashton realize that he was no longer underground.  
“Hey, Ash, could you bring me that bag by the door?” Raphael asked Ashton from his area of the room.  
“Okay...couldn’t you just get it yourself?” Ashton picked up the ratty old bag and dragged it to his over dramatic friend.  
“But that requires so much,” Raphael threw himself across the bed he had claimed, placing the back of his hand to his forehead. “Movement!”  
“Fine,” Ashton threw the bag square onto the other boy’s stomach. “You over dramatic baby.”  
“Nandri,” Raphael told him.  
“Ritryeon,” Ashton questioned.  
“No, Tamil,” Ashton heard Caligo say but just barely.  
“Since when do you speak Tamil?” Ashton questioned his friend, not even stopping to wonder why Caligo recognized it.  
“Since forever. My mother’s native language was Tamil.”  
“Is there any other languages you speak that you haven’t told me? Just curious.”  
“Dutch.”

Raphael went on to explain his family being from India and the Netherlands with a bit of Pennsylvania Dutch mixed in for good measure. He rambled on and on about the different stories his parents had of their separate sides of the family. Somewhere, mixed in with his comedic stories, Ashton figured out that Raphael’s father was half Pennsylvania Dutch and Dutch from the Netherlands and his mother was from southeast India.   
Raphael was telling them about a story of his Grandfather's run in with a King Cobra when the strange man from earlier, Swift Morteley, ran in.   
“You lot,” he looked over his shoulder and pointed behind him. “Just...uhm...come with me,” the strange man scurried back down the hall, all the children followed suit. 

He led them through the maze of rooms and through the green field that lay between the sorcery dorms and the main building. Something had obviously spooked him. Swift stopped in front of a large floor to ceiling bookshelf, as he pulled on a copy of Charles Dickens’ ‘Moby Dick’ and the bookshelf fell back into the wall before swinging open. Ashton heard the sound of a television. His heart suddenly stopped when he heard the mention of ‘Denver’.  
From the voice, coming from the television, “In the earlier hours of the morning here in Denver an assault on the city took place that has authorities baffled. Police have confirmed at least eighteen deaths, fifty eight injured, and three in critical condition: including 13 year old Aragon Vesper. Authorities are still tracking down suspects, now back to you Yvetta.”  
Ashton felt as though he could no longer breath. Like all air in the room had suddenly disappeared. He stumbled out of the room thinking, ‘I was there...I was there.’ Shuffling his feet on the floor Ashton moved back through the building with a quickening pace. He heard a pair of footsteps following him, he turned his head to see a boy donning a white head of hair following him.  
“A...A..Are you okay?” He sounded timid, like the question wasn’t meant to be spoken aloud.   
“No,” Ashton looked back in front of him and ran.  
Caligo followed him to the dorms and watched as Ashton collapsed in the bed between his own and the Winchester boys. He walked to his bed and picked up his beloved cello from the floor. The de Dracon boy began to play the first thing that came to mind. Ashton lied on his back and listened to the music of Caligo's cello. He could almost hear the words in accompaniment.   
Wise men say  
Only fools rush in  
But I can't help falling in love with you  
Shall I stay  
Would it be a sin  
If I can't help falling in love with you

He was almost lulled to sleep by the sound of it, the song being one of his mother's favorites. Turning his head to face Caligo, Caligo's back really, he spoke up, "Elvis?"  
In a quiet, timid voice he heard in response, "Yeah."  
"Alright," Ashton readjusted himself to lay on his side, his back now to Caligo's. "I can dig Elvis," eyes closed and breaths evening out, Ashton Bulova succumbed to the drawl of sleep.


	15. Domino Effect

Ashton Bulova lay on his back staring up at the inside of his bed's canopy. He counted the days and ignored the darkness lurking in the back of his mind, one month.  
A month to go.  
A month to ponder everything that had happened so far.  
A month until new students arrived.  
Maybe a month before he saw Aragon again.  
A month until classes started and he could avoid the long stares from Caligo.  
One month, just one more month.

 

\----------

 

Those residing at Miss Caramel's School for the Gifted knew nothing of it but the dominos had already begun falling . Hell was about to reign down on them, the whole world exactly. For now they sat studying their books and exploring the grounds, blissfully ignorant of the future ahead.

 

\---------

As something awoke, halfway around the world, it spoke out in one unison voice.  
"We're coming for you, Ashton Bulova, you won't be able to hide this time."


	16. Author's Note

Reader(s),

If you were able to get through this then I applaud you. I cannot read this without thinking 'What the hell was I trying to write?' so if you were able to, more power to you. Please though comment and point out as many flaws and errors as there are so I am able to improve future works..

Cheers,  
Loki


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